Acclaimed novelist and journalist Horacio Castellanos Moya will visit the University of Rochester to discuss his controversial body of work, world literature, and how the culture and politics of El Salvador forced him into living in exile in the United States at 6:30 p.m. April 12 in the Hawkins-Carlson Room of Rush Rhees Library on the University's River Campus. The free event is part of the Reading the World Conversation Series, hosted by Open Letter, the University's press for translated literature, and the College of Arts, Sciences & Engineering.
"Horacio Castellanos Moya is one of the most provocative voices in 20th century Latin American literature," said Chad Post, director of Open Letter and Three Percent, an online resource for translated literature. Post is one of the creators of Three Percent's Best Translated Book Award, which listed Moya's novel SENSELESSNESS as a finalist for fiction writing in 2009. "The English translation of SENSELESSNESS introduced a new set of readers to the dark, bold style of writing that has earned him the title of El Salvador's foremost novelist," Post said.
Moya was born 1957 in Honduras and grew up in El Salvador. The author of nine novels, he also worked for 12 years as a journalist, editor and political analyst in Mexico. In 1997 he was exiled from his home in Sal Salvador after receiving death threats in response to the political criticism in his novel El Asco: Thomas Bernhard en San Salvador. He was a writer in residence in the City of Asylum program in Pittsburgh from 2006 to 2008 and currently lives in the United States.
The Reading the World Conversation Series brings together resources from Open Letter, the Literary Translation Program, the Departments of English, Modern Languages and Cultures, Anthropology, and others to create a series of events that brings world-renowned authors and translators to meet with members of the University community, including faculty and students. The event is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts.
For more information about Moya's visit to Rochester, visit http://openletterbooks.org/articles/53/april-12-2010-reading-the-world-conversation-series-horacio-castellanos-moya or call Chad Post at 585.319.0823.