DePaul University’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has named Achy Obejas as the new Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz Writer-in-Residence. The award-winning fiction writer will begin the five-year post, which includes teaching assignments in the English department and the Latin-American and Latino Studies program, in January.

Obejas replaces Chicago native and renowned literary figure Ana Castillo who held the post from 2001 until the spring of 2006 and helped to create the name for the professorship that was established for Latino literary scholars. The chair is named in honor of the 17th century Mexican nun who is revered as one of the earliest advocates for a woman’s right to education.

Havana-born Obejas is the author of the critically acclaimed novel “Days of Awe” (2001), which examines the tensions between public and private identities set against the backdrop of the Jewish community in Cuba. Her other major works are “Memory Mambo” (1996) and “We Came All the Way from Cuba So You Could Dress Like This?” (1994), a collection of short stories.

She received the Lambda Literary Foundation’s first-place award for lesbian fiction in 2002 for “Days of Awe” and the same award for “Memory Mambo” in 1997.

An equally impressive journalist, Obejas worked for more than 10 years for the Chicago Tribune where she wrote and reported on arts and culture. She was a member of the Tribune team that won a Pulitzer for the 2001 series “Gateway to Gridlock,” a compelling profile of the chaotic American air traffic system. Among her other awards are the Studs Terkel Journalism Prize and several Peter Lisagor journalism honors. Among the many stories she covered are Pope John Paul II’s historic 1998 visit to Cuba, the arrival of the Al-Qaeda prisoners in Guantanamo, the Versace murder in Miami and the AIDS epidemic.

“The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is honored to have such a distinguished, accomplished and award-winning journalist join our faculty,” said Charles Suchar, dean of the college. “Achy Obejas brings a wealth of knowledge and creativity and a connectedness to the Latino communities in Chicago that will serve not only to enrich the courses and workshops she will teach for us, but also the cultural environment within the university.”

During the winter quarter, which begins January 3, Obejas will teach Introduction to Fiction Writing and Jewish Latin American Culture.

Her most recently published poetry is included in the anthology “Burnt Sugar” (2006), a collection of contemporary Cuban poems in English and Spanish.