The Latin American Writers Series will showcase the most representative writings of the continent. The acclaimed Ecuadorian writer and Tulane’s Greenleaf Scholar-in-Residence, Gabriela Alemán will conduct in-depth interviews with a dozen authors, that treat a territory defined by massive migrations, multiple forms of violence, economic precariousness and environmental struggles. These writers whose texts circulate in a territory defined by mass migrations, multiple forms of violence, economic precariousness and environmental struggles. These authors – from different generations, countries and traditions – will describe their lives, influences and the mechanisms that tie their interests and concerns with their writing. The interviews will serve to feed an archive that will reflect the way writing and publishing takes place in Latin America today.

El Latin American Writers Series reunirá a lo más representativos de la escritura continental. La reconocida escritora ecuatoriana y “Greenleaf Scholar-in-Residence” de Tulane, Gabriela Alemán realizará entrevistas en profundidad con una docena de autores que se mueven en un territorio definido por migraciones masivas, múltiples violencias, precariedad económica y luchas medioambientales. Los autores, de generaciones, países y tradiciones distintas hablarán sobre sus vidas, influencias y los mecanismos que unen sus intereses y preocupaciones con su escritura. Las entrevistas servirán para alimentar un archivo que reflejará la manera en que se escribe y publica en América Latina hoy en día.

Join us for the following interviews in Spanish in the Greenleaf Conference Room, 100 Jones Hall at 5:30 PM.

April 12, 2019

Achy Obejas

Achy Obejas was born in Havana, in 1956. She is a poet, novelist, journalist, translator, and teacher. When she was six years old, she and her family immigrated to the United States during the Cuban Revolution. Her published books of poetry, short fiction and novels include: We Came All the Way from Cuba So You Could Dress like This? (1994), Memory Mambo (1996), Days of Awe (2001), Ruins (2009), Aguas y otros cuentos (2009), This is What Happened in Our Other Life (2009) and The Tower of the Antilles & Other Stories (2017). Memory Mambo and Days of Awe won Lambda Awards. Obejas is also an accomplished journalist; she worked at the Chicago Tribune for more than ten years, and her articles have been featured in a variety of publications, including the Village Voice, Vogue, and the Nation. She has translated more than twenty books, amongst them: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Junot Diaz, 2007) into Spanish and the works of Wendy Guerra and Rita Indiana, amongst many others, into English. She is the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and is the former Sor Juana Visiting Writer at DePaul University. She currently lives in Oakland, where she is the Distinguished Visiting Writer at Mills College.

April 23, 2019

Claudia Hernández González was born in San Salvador, in 1975. She has a degree in Communications from the Technological University of El Salvador, and has also studied law. Hernández has published six collections of short stories and two novels: Otras ciudades (2001), Mediodía de frontera (2002), Olvida uno (2005), De fronteras (2007), La canción del mar (2007), Causas Naturales (2013), Roza, tumba, quema (2017) and El verbo J (2018). Her stories have been published in several anthologies, including: The Central Americans (2002), Papayas und Bananen. Erotische und andere Erzahlungen aus Zentralamerika (2002), Pequenas resistencias 2. Antología del cuento centroamericano contemporáneo (2003). Sangría Publishing House, based in Brooklyn, published her bilingual book They Have Fired Her Again in 2016. She has been anthologized in Spain, Italy, France, Germany and the United States. The translation of Roza, tumba, quema will appear in English in 2019. She won the prestigious Anna Seghers award in Germany in 2004.

April 30, 2019 Yuri Herrera Yuri Herrera was born in Actopan, Mexico, in 1970. He studied Politics in Mexico, Creative Writing in El Paso and took his PhD in literature at Berkeley. He has written four novels, three of them translated into several languages: Trabajos del reino (Kingdom Cons, And Other Stories, 2017) Señales que precederán al fin del mundo (Signs Preceding the End of the World, And Other Stories, 2015) and La transmigración de los cuerpos (The Transmigration of Bodies, And Other Stories, 2016) and El incendio de la mina El bordo (Periférica, 2018). He has published short stories, articles, non-fiction and essays in magazines and newspapers in the US, Latin America and Spain. He was editor and founder of the literary magazine el perro. His first novel to appear in English, Signs Preceding the End of the World, was published to great critical acclaim in 2015 and included in many Best-of-Year lists, including The Guardian’s Best Fiction and NBC News’s Ten Great Latino Books, going on to win the 2016 Best Translated Book Award. He is currently teaching at Tulane University.