Ariel Banfield Gomezqp

I grew up in Banfield, a small rural town founded by Englishmen in the South of Buenos Aires, Argentina. As a child, I felt that nothing ever happened there and wished to be transported far away to where real adventures occurred. Unable to motivate my parents to flee with me to some exotic place, I escaped by reading and imagining all sorts of stories that eventually I began to write. Curiously, as I travel around the world, I keep finding my town and its people everywhere I go. 

I am a scientist and a pediatrician, and I am privileged to lead a team of exceptionally gifted researchers at the University of Virginia where we study a fundamental biological question: how cells know who they are. Although I am thrilled when we uncover the astonishing inner workings of a cell, science is not enough, and I have this persistent yearning to understand whatever more is there to understand. It is then, when a story emerges, irresistible, inexorably taking over, transporting me once again, saving my day. My stories have appeared in Street Light, Hospital Drive, and Southerncross Review and compiled into El hacedor de Barriletes/The Kite Maker, a book of short stories written in Spanish.
 
In addition to the unique perspectives of a physician-scientist who believes in the power of storytelling, I bring words from far away, rumors of my childhood embedded in my mother tongue, and the imagery of my Italian and Spanish ancestors. By nature, and training, I am curious and open-minded, and whether I am studying the fate of a cell or reading a story, I delight in the discovering of the patterns and plots that mark our existence. My new novel is about a revered scientist who makes an extraordinary discovery. This event propels him into a journey that changes him in ways he never envisioned, leading him to question how data and reality ought to be interpreted.