<p>Orlando Echeverri Benedetti (born 26 October 1980 in Cartagena de Indias) is a Colombian writer and translator.</p> <p>He holds a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from the University of Cartagena and a master’s degree in Journalism from Torcuato di Tella University. He has published short stories and essays in <em>El Malpensante</em>, <em>Universo Centro</em> and at the Société Jersiaise, where he served as project curator for the photographic archive.</p> <p>In 2014 he won the National Book Award from the District Institute of the Arts (IDARTES) of Colombia for his first novel, <em>Sin freno por la senda equivocada</em>. The work was longlisted for the Colombian Ministry of Culture's National Book Award in 2016 but did not advance to the final round.</p> <p>His second novel, <em>Criacuervo</em> (Angosta Editores, 2017), was described by <em>Letras Libres</em> as among the most important works in contemporary Spanish American literature. It was shortlisted for the Colombian Ministry of Culture's National Novel Award in 2018. The novel explores the orphanhood and uprooting of two German brothers who try to reunite in a Colombian desert.</p> <p>In 2018 Penguin Random House published <em>La fiesta en el cañaveral</em>, and in 2019 IDARTES invited him to take part in Bogotá Contada, an initiative that brings writers to the Colombian capital to write about the city.</p> <p>He has translated works by Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and contemporary authors such as Julianne Pachico and Sergio de la Pava.</p>