Love has been published in 26 languages, making it the most widely translated Cuban novel of all time. In 2007, the novel was awarded the gold medal at the Florida Book Awards, in the category Best Book in Spanish Language. In 2004, she was the guest of honor at the 25th International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts (ICFA) in the United States. It was the first time that honor had ever been conferred on a Spanish-language writer. In November 2014, she was the guest of honor during the University Book Fair in Tabasco (Mexico), where she received the Malinalli National Award for the Promotion of Arts, Human Rights and Cultural Diversity, which until then had only received figures of Mexican culture and society. It was the first time this award was given to an international figure. Her short story collection, Extraños testimonios, was published in 2017. In an interview, Chaviano classified the genre of this work as "Caribbean Gothic", as it brings together "elements of horror, absurdity, eroticism, and a certain dose of humor à la Cortázar, amidst tropical and sunny environments, specifically in the Caribbean." In 2019, her historical thriller Los hijos de la Diosa Huracán was published by Grijalbo, the Spanish imprint of Penguin Random House. The novel, which required more than a decade of research work, recreates and rescues the Taínos' world, following the trail and paying homage to the legacy of the main Caribbean indigenous culture. Hence the importance of Taino mythology in the novel, especially the symbolism of their three main goddesses: Atabey, Guabancex, and Iguanaboína. In 2020, the novel was awarded the gold medal at the Florida Book Awards 2019 contest, in the category Best Book in Spanish Language, making Chaviano the only writer to twice receive the award in that category. Her País de dragones, which was published in Colombia in 2021, won the Los Mejores de Banco del Libro, an award given to the best books for children and young people published in Spanish anywhere in the world. Chaviano has been a guest lecturer and visiting author at several universities and colleges, like Denison University (2007), Florida International University (2014), Miami Dade College (2016), and University of North Georgia (2017). She is a cousin of Cuban actor César Évora. Literary influences Her literary influences derive fundamentally from the Celtic world, from diverse mythologies, and from the principal epics of ancient