Dana Gynther: an American Writer in Valencia
Dana Gynther was born in Saint Louis, Missouri, in the heart of the American Mid-West. At the age of ten she moved to Auburn, Alabama, where her father took up a post in the university there.
It was there that she met her husband to be, Valencia translator to be Carlos Garcia. And yet it was the French language that brought them together, as Dana taught it and Carlos studied it, having graduated from Valencia’s Liceo Francais.
At first they considered taking advantage of the French Connection and moving there, but having friends and relatives in Valencia tipped the balance.
Dana started writing on the Camino de Santiago, and wrote various pieces before tackling her first novel.
Dana has lived in Valencia since 1994, and has published two novels with Simon and Schuster written here. The book she is currently hoping to publish however is her first novel, actually set in Valencia and is another historical novel, this time is all about historical figures connected to the city’s Admiral Baths, which is also the title.
The baths have a fascinating history and functioned from 1313 to 1959, although today they are just a historical monument. Dana first got interested in the Baths when she was asked to translate their web site.
The two novels that she has so far published are ‘The Woman in the Photograph’, whose characters include the painter Man Ray, and ‘Crossing on the Paris’ about a series of characters on a ship called The Paris.
She is currently working on a new novel based upon a childhood friend who joined the Marines and was among the victims of the attack on the US Embassy in Beirut in 1983.
Dana is one of many international personalities from all over the world who has chosen Valencia as her home, where she can ride her bicycle along the river park, feeling more comfortable and safer than in the gun-toting, bible-thumping deep south of the USA under the looming shadow of the ‘unimaginable’ Donald Trump.
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