Wattpad Star and published author Zelá Brambillé has died following a battle with COVID-19.
Mexican author Andrea González, better known by her pen name Zelá Brambillé, began her writing career uploading her stories on Wattpad in 2013. She began accumulating millions of reads, and developed a massive following on Wattpad.
Before long publisher Nova Casa Editorial reached out to publish her work.
In 2017, they published two of her books: Luz de Luciérnaga and Somos Electricidad. They published Miradas Azucaradas the following year, and its sequel after that.
Her fifth novel, a dystopian YA book titled Tiempos de Ceniza, was selected as a finalist in Oz Editorial's II Premio Oz de Novela contest, and ultimately published under that imprint. Oz also published Zelá's next novel, Gardenia, in 2020.
Meanwhile, Zelá continued to write on Wattpad, creating 23 stories that amassed over 125 million reads in total. Her book Sedúceme Despacio was selected as a Wattpad Paid story and she was invited to become a Wattpad Star. She has just under 600,000 followers on the platform.
On Facebook in late July, she announced to her followers that she had COVID-19 and had subsequently developed pneumonia and would be hospitalized.
In early August, Zelá's brother made the following statement (translated from Spanish) on social media:
Hello Zelers! I’m Carlos, Zela’s brother. Today all of us are mourning, we lost a great friend, daughter, sister and especially the best writer we’ve seen in a long time… We have a great angel up there with all of us.
We have no words to describe this great loss, she leaves happy for all the achievements she made in neither time and none of this would have been possible without all of you, we thank you very much for all the love you gave her throughout these years. We love you Zelers. 🖤
Zela was just 27 years old. Many have taken to social media to express their sadness and condolences to her family.
One fan, referencing a quote from Zelá's own book, said "Zelá you a firefly that lights up my soul."