Ericka Verba

Author / Professor / Musician

Ericka Verba is Director and Professor of Latin American Studies at California State University, Los Angeles. She is the author of the book Thanks to Life: A Biography of Violeta Parra. Chilean musician and artist Violeta Parra (1917–1967) is an inspiration to generations of artists and activists across the globe. Her music is synonymous with resistance, and it animated both the Chilean folk revival and the protest music movement Nueva Cancion (New Song). Her renowned song “Gracias a la vida” has been covered countless times, including by Joan Baez, Mercedes Sosa, and Kacey Musgraves. A self-taught visual artist, Parra was the first Latin American to have a solo exhibition at the Museum of Decorative Arts in the Louvre. In her remarkable biography, Ericka Verba traces Parra’s radical life and multifaceted artistic trajectory across Latin America and Europe and on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Her book represents the culmination of a decades-long curiosity about Violeta Parra and engagement with her work.