THE AUTHOR

E.H. de la Espriella was born and raised in Panama.  He is an award-winning author and designer working as a design and branding creative leader at The Walt Disney Company.  He is also a fine artist working in graphic design, oils, collage, drawing, and photography.  Mr. de la Espriella lives in Orlando, Florida with his family. 

Mr. de la Espriella wrote his first book, Sun Night in 2018. It is a creative realism memoir about his childhood years growing up in Panama with his brother. His book has been recognized with various awards and translated into Spanish with the title El Sol de la Noche. The book is edited in English by Samantha Hubbard and the Spanish translation is edited by Leticia Esteves Reyes.

In 2022, E.H. released the children’s picture book titled When The Sun Came Out At Night which is based on one of the stories from Sun Night and illustrated by Costa Rican artist Sergio Guillén. E.H. also produced, designed, and published a cookbook titled Recipes for Entertaining Panamanian Style authored by his own mother, Sonia Ortiz. The book received gold medal honors for best cookbook at the 2023 President’s Book Awards from the Florida Association of Publishers and Authors.

To learn more about E.H. de la Espriella's artwork, visit delaespriella.com.

Q & A with E. H. de la Espriella

What was it like to write your first book?
It was completely scary and intimidating.  Difficult to write, it required recollecting very emotional moments of the past.  About three years ago, I began arranging ideas to build the story and preparing a chapter list.  From the beginning, it was very clear that I wanted to tell a story about the conversations that my brother and I had at night when the lights went out in our bedroom.  We talked about many things until one of us fell asleep.  And as we talked, shared, and experienced, we learned from each other and supported each other like no one else. 

You have described this story as one of many contrasts, can you elaborate on that?
While the book is a memoir, the real story of a short period of time in the life of my family, there is plenty of fantasy found in the stories my brother and I told each other.  I wanted to create a clear difference between reality and fantasy through the use of color and texture.  I did that by describing the real environments in a simpler way, while the fantasy stories in richer visual detail. 

What would you like your readers to leave with after reading Sun Night?
For those who were lucky to know my brother personally, I hope they see Sun Night as a way to honor his memory.  For those who did not know my brother, I hope that they get the essence of who he was through the pages of the book.  This will help keep his memory alive.  Additionally, I hope to inspire adults battling alcoholism to seek assistance, if not for themselves, for those around them whose lives they affect.  I began to write the second part of my story in 2017.

I'd like to thank three people who helped and supported me through this process for the last three years.  Samantha Hubbard for her amazing and special friendship, for believing in me and in my story, and for giving Sun Night the necessary care in editing my thoughts just so perfectly.  James Peshek for understanding the hours and days where I needed to disconnect and just write, and for all the emotional support and love only a husband can provide when remembering the past was just too difficult to handle.  And finally, to my mother, Sonia Ortiz, for she has been the rock of my small family because without her I would not be here.