Anna Deeny Morales

ANNA DEENY MORALES is a US-based Latina writer who grew up between Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico. Her fifth opera commission, Home Come Home, with score by Brian Arreola, will debut with the IN Series and the Children’s Chorus of Washington in 2027. Previous works include Las Místicas de México, an immersive opera created with Timothy Nelson, Marybeth Diggle, Tina Chancey, Marta Pérez García, and Emily Balzer. Místicas debuted in 2024 at the Dupont Circle Underground and the Mexican Cultural Institute. Commissioned by the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, ZAVALA-ZAVALA: an opera in v cuts, with score by Brian Arreola, is based on the first family separation case under the Zero Tolerance Policy in El Paso, Texas. ZAVALA-ZAVALA made its world debut at the Kennedy Center in 2022 and was performed at Gala Hispanic Theater, Washington, DC, in 2024. Recent adaptations of zarzuelas include Gonzalo Roig’s Cecilia Valdés (2018) and La Paloma at the Wall (2019), a new rendition of Tomás Bretón's La verbena de la Paloma, with score adaptation by Ulises Eliseo. Both were commissioned by the IN Series and performed at Gala Hispanic Theater. Original works for contemporary dance and theater include La straniera (1997) and Tela di Ragno (1999–2002), both commissioned by Il Balletto di Spoleto and performed in Italy and Spain. Her operas have been supported by the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Georgetown Americas Institute, and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. She was a Trinity Long Room Hub Fellow, Dublin, in 2025, and will be a Hawthorndon Resident in 2026.

A National Endowment for the Arts Fellow for her translation of Tala by Nobel Laureate, Gabriela Mistral, Deeny Morales's translations of Raúl Zurita’s poetry include Sky Below, Selected Works (Northwestern UP, 2016), of which she is also the editor; Dreams for Kurosawa (arrow as aarow, 2011); and Purgatory (University of California Press, 2009). Other translations include Alejandra Pizarnik’s Diana’s Tree (Shearsman, 2020); and Mercedes Roffé’s Floating Lanterns (Shearsman, 2015). Forthcoming translations include Ecopoems, Storm, & Some Fringe Benefits, a volume of selected works by Nicanor Parra, which she has also edited for New Directions; and Amanda Berenguer's Identity of Certain Fruits (Point Zero Press). Deeny Morales has guest edited literary journals such as Almost Island, based in Mumbai, India. And her essays and translations of poetry by Rosabetty Muñoz, Malú Urriola, Diana Bellessi, Idea Vilariño, Marosa di Giorgio, Mirta Rosenberg, Isabel de los Ángeles Ruano, and Idea Vilariño, among others, have appeared in anthologies and journals such as the Paris Review, Mandorla, BOMB, and the Harvard Review. Her monograph, Other Solitudes: Essays on Consciousness and Poetry, is forthcoming from Vanderbilt UP.

Deeny Morales received a PhD in Hispanic Languages and Literatures from the University of California, Berkeley; an MA in Comparative Literature, with an emphasis on Puerto Rican theater, from Dartmouth College; and a BA in English Literature with a minor in Piano Performance from Shepherd University. After college, she studied theater and directing at the Accademia Nazionale d'Arte Drammatica, Silvio d'Amico, in Rome, Italy. She has lectured at Dartmouth College and Harvard University, and is currently a Fellow in the Humanities at the Center for Latin American Studies, Georgetown University.

Deeny Morales has served as an expert reader for the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship competition as well as judge for the Academy of American Poets Harold Morton Landon Translation Award and the ALTA National Translation Award in Poetry. She is currently Vice President of the Board of Directors of the IN Series.

Photo by Tamzin Smith.