In "A Jangada de Pedra" (The Stone Raft) the Portuguese writer José Saramago imagines Iberia literally breaking off from the rest of Europe.
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Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Wednesday, January 02, 2013
Santiago Gamboa - Plegarias nocturnas
Santiago Gamboa's "Plegarias nocturnas" has Colombia and its political and social reality in the center of the plot.
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Wednesday, October 10, 2012
New Ildefonso Falcones novel
Random House reported Wednesday that Ildefonso Falcones will publish a new historical novel during the first quarter of 2013, the novel his to be published in Castilian by Grijalbo and Catalan by Rosa dels Vents.
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Tuesday, October 09, 2012
Early Mexican photojournalism in Mexico City Museum
More than eleven thousand photographs remained stored in the family closet of Manuel Ramos, one of the pioneers of Mexican photojournalism. It took almost half a century for the Ramos files to be brought to light. Part of this files, that show the advancement of the Mexican Revolution, the centenary celebrations of Independence, the Cristero War and the modern architecture of the city, will be presented at the next exhibition which opens on Wednesday, October 10 at the Mexico City Museum.
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Interview with Brazilian artist Henrique Oliveira
Brazilian artist Henrique Oliveira talks about the creation of his work, "Gourd," that bursts from a wall in MOCA's newly completed uptown home.
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Isabel Allende receives Denmark's top literary award
Chilean novelist Isabel Allende receives the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award from Denmark's Crown Prince Frederik.
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Monday, October 08, 2012
Interrupted innocence
Repression, discipline and religion are the cornerstones of "Las poseídas", the audacious new novel from Betina Gonzalez.
“Festival de la palabra” literary festival celebrates Spanish language
When acclaimed writers, poets and journalists from Latin America, the Caribbean and Spain get together for a literary festival, says Puerto Rican writer Mayra Santos-Febres, the conversation is not necessarily about particular books or essays.
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Mexican Novelist Daniel Krauze Wins Literature Prize
The novel "Dias de Lava" (Days of Lava) by Mexican writer Daniel Krauze was honored in the inaugural edition of the Nuevas Letras Prize, awarded by the Planeta publishing corporation and the Sanborns Group.
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Peruvian poet Antonio Cisneros died
The Peruvian poet Antonio Cisneros died Saturday at age 69. Cisneros, also a journalist, screenwriter and professor, was awarded the Pablo Neruda Poetry Ibero-American award in 2010.
He was one of the most important Latin American poets, and received, in 1968, with his poem 'Canto ceremonial contra un oso hormiguero' the Casa de Las Americas prize, which catapulted him to international recognition.
Cisneros died at his home in Lima, victim of lung cancer.
He was one of the most important Latin American poets, and received, in 1968, with his poem 'Canto ceremonial contra un oso hormiguero' the Casa de Las Americas prize, which catapulted him to international recognition.
Cisneros died at his home in Lima, victim of lung cancer.
Monday, October 01, 2012
Premio Grijalbo de Novela 2012
Mexican writer Guillermo Fadanelli won last Thursday the Premio Grijalbo de Novela 2012 for his novel "Las mujeres muertas" (The dead women).
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Friday, September 28, 2012
Sex is dirty and innocent, reproduction, monstrous
The provocative Colombian writer Fernando Vallejo ensures that overpopulation is the great tragedy of humanity and that politics is a gangster system...
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On the Road
Director Walter Salles talks to Margaret Pomeranz about jazz, bebop and On the Road, his new movie inspired by the life of writer Jack Kerouac.
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Junot Díaz
The geek hero who gave us The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao returns with a new collection of linked stories, This Is How You Lose Her. Read More
Monday, August 06, 2012
Carlos Fuentes: Vlad
Jeff Vandermeer reviews Carlos Fuentes lastest novel "Vlad".
When Carlos Fuentes died in May at age 83, he left behind an impressive legacy and an eclectic body of work. Novels like the sprawling, Joycean "Terra Nostra" placed him at the center of the Latin American Boom of the 1970s, alongside such greats as Cortázar and García Márquez. But later books were often just as ambitious, returning to themes like the corruption of ideals.
The short novel "Vlad" (first published in Spanish as part of Fuentes's 2004 collection "Inquieta Compañía") provides ample evidence of Fuentes's powerful abilities. The book documents the "awful adventure" of Yves Navarro after his wife helps a respected lawyer find a house in Mexico City for a mysterious European refugee, Vladimir Radu, later revealed to be the infamous historical figure turned vampire Vlad the Impaler.
Dark humor dominates the novel's early pages, with Navarro mystified by the client's requests for a house that is "remote ... easy to defend against intruders ... with a ravine out back." The client also wants blackened windows and an escape tunnel. During Navarro's initial visit, he notices that "a great number of drains ran along the walls of the ground floor, as though our client was expecting a flood any day now." Radu wears a ridiculous wig and glue-on mustache, and his manservant's demeanor owes no small debt to Marty Feldman's performance in "Young Frankenstein."
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When Carlos Fuentes died in May at age 83, he left behind an impressive legacy and an eclectic body of work. Novels like the sprawling, Joycean "Terra Nostra" placed him at the center of the Latin American Boom of the 1970s, alongside such greats as Cortázar and García Márquez. But later books were often just as ambitious, returning to themes like the corruption of ideals.
The short novel "Vlad" (first published in Spanish as part of Fuentes's 2004 collection "Inquieta Compañía") provides ample evidence of Fuentes's powerful abilities. The book documents the "awful adventure" of Yves Navarro after his wife helps a respected lawyer find a house in Mexico City for a mysterious European refugee, Vladimir Radu, later revealed to be the infamous historical figure turned vampire Vlad the Impaler.
Dark humor dominates the novel's early pages, with Navarro mystified by the client's requests for a house that is "remote ... easy to defend against intruders ... with a ravine out back." The client also wants blackened windows and an escape tunnel. During Navarro's initial visit, he notices that "a great number of drains ran along the walls of the ground floor, as though our client was expecting a flood any day now." Radu wears a ridiculous wig and glue-on mustache, and his manservant's demeanor owes no small debt to Marty Feldman's performance in "Young Frankenstein."
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Nicaraguan writer Sergio Ramirez turns 70
An interview with Nicaraguan writer Sergio Ramirez, winner of the Premio Iberoamericano de Letras "José Donoso" in 2011, and the Alfaguara Prize in 1998, where he talks about his career and projects.
La escritura para mí es como una fuerza vital que me abre una perspectiva de trabajo todos los días. Tengo entusiasmo por la escritura y, por tanto, entusiasmo por la vida, de manera que diría que me encuentro en mi mejor momento
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La escritura para mí es como una fuerza vital que me abre una perspectiva de trabajo todos los días. Tengo entusiasmo por la escritura y, por tanto, entusiasmo por la vida, de manera que diría que me encuentro en mi mejor momento
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Carlos Ruiz Zafon: The Prisoner of Heaven
Yvonne Zipp reviews Carlos Ruiz Zafon's "The Prisoner of Heaven"
"The Prisoner of Heaven" is Zafon's third novel set around Sempere & Sons bookstore and the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a fabled repository in Barcelona where people are allowed to choose one volume in their lifetime. Oh, you could digitize all those rare editions, but where's the drama in that?
Zafon claims you don't have to read his books in chronological order, but "The Prisoner of Heaven" would be a confusing place to start. This slender novel provides some answers to what happened to David Martin, the writer who made a Faustian bargain in "The Angel's Game" (2009), and to the mother of Daniel, the young hero in "The Shadow of the Wind" (2004).
Each of the novels in this series revolves around a particular rare book. This time, "The Count of Monte Cristo" gets pride of place. Several key plot points parallel Dumas's classic of wrongful imprisonment and revenge.
It's Christmas 1957, and customers are scarce at Sempere & Sons; bills are coming due. But then a man with a porcelain hand enters the store and buys the most expensive book, an edition of "The Count of Monte Cristo." He inscribes it: "For Fermin Romero de Torres, who came back from among the dead and holds the key to the future."
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"The Prisoner of Heaven" is Zafon's third novel set around Sempere & Sons bookstore and the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a fabled repository in Barcelona where people are allowed to choose one volume in their lifetime. Oh, you could digitize all those rare editions, but where's the drama in that?
Zafon claims you don't have to read his books in chronological order, but "The Prisoner of Heaven" would be a confusing place to start. This slender novel provides some answers to what happened to David Martin, the writer who made a Faustian bargain in "The Angel's Game" (2009), and to the mother of Daniel, the young hero in "The Shadow of the Wind" (2004).
Each of the novels in this series revolves around a particular rare book. This time, "The Count of Monte Cristo" gets pride of place. Several key plot points parallel Dumas's classic of wrongful imprisonment and revenge.
It's Christmas 1957, and customers are scarce at Sempere & Sons; bills are coming due. But then a man with a porcelain hand enters the store and buys the most expensive book, an edition of "The Count of Monte Cristo." He inscribes it: "For Fermin Romero de Torres, who came back from among the dead and holds the key to the future."
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Chavela Vargas
The lady in the red poncho, the Shaman, the legendary Chavela Vargas (San Joaquin de Flores, Costa Rica, 1919) died yesterday in Cuernavaca, at age 93 in consequence of respiratory complications.
Friday, August 03, 2012
A hundred years of Virgilio Piñera
Mario López-Goicoechea writes about Cuban author Virgilio Piñera
Virgilio Domingo Piñera Llera was born in Cárdenas, western Cuba, on 4 August 1912 – 100 years ago tomorrow. Nothing in his normal upbringing (his father worked as a public servant and his mother was a teacher) could predict that he would one day become one of Cuban literature's trailblazers. But from an early age, Piñera was an avid reader; among the books he considered essential reading were À la Recherche du Temps Perdu by Marcel Proust, and Moby Dick by Herman Melville. This capacity to draw inspiration from different genres was fundamental in the development of his career and unlike the sesquipedalian Lezama Lima, author of the masterpiece Paradiso, Piñera combined Cuban vernacular with more refined language.
In the same week that the anglophone world mourned one of its literary giants, Gore Vidal, it is perhaps serendipitous that in Latin America we're celebrating the centenary of an author of equal stature. Like Vidal, Piñera was known for his caustic wit and acerbic tongue. This earned him a reputation for being difficult, capricious and snobbish. And like the American controversialist, he was a prolific writer: he left behind more than 20 plays, three novels, tomes of short stories and a vast number of poems. In 1955, he co-founded the magazine Ciclón, a journal exploring trends such as surrealism and the theatre of the absurd through their literary, aesthetic, philosophical and psychoanalytical concerns.
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Virgilio Domingo Piñera Llera was born in Cárdenas, western Cuba, on 4 August 1912 – 100 years ago tomorrow. Nothing in his normal upbringing (his father worked as a public servant and his mother was a teacher) could predict that he would one day become one of Cuban literature's trailblazers. But from an early age, Piñera was an avid reader; among the books he considered essential reading were À la Recherche du Temps Perdu by Marcel Proust, and Moby Dick by Herman Melville. This capacity to draw inspiration from different genres was fundamental in the development of his career and unlike the sesquipedalian Lezama Lima, author of the masterpiece Paradiso, Piñera combined Cuban vernacular with more refined language.
In the same week that the anglophone world mourned one of its literary giants, Gore Vidal, it is perhaps serendipitous that in Latin America we're celebrating the centenary of an author of equal stature. Like Vidal, Piñera was known for his caustic wit and acerbic tongue. This earned him a reputation for being difficult, capricious and snobbish. And like the American controversialist, he was a prolific writer: he left behind more than 20 plays, three novels, tomes of short stories and a vast number of poems. In 1955, he co-founded the magazine Ciclón, a journal exploring trends such as surrealism and the theatre of the absurd through their literary, aesthetic, philosophical and psychoanalytical concerns.
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The past was better
With the luxuriant prose that marks his style, Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa displays here a nostalgic reflection of the supposed global loss of a "high culture" for minorities.
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