Tag Archives: Gabriela Mistral

September 18, 2013 · 8:00 am

Happy Independence Day, Chile!

Chile declared its independence from Spain on Sept. 18, 1810. The South American country has a turbulent history — and one of the richest literary traditions in the world.

• The only Latina to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, Gabriela Mistral (1889-1956) is best known for her poems that touch on the subjects of children and motherhood, such as in the book Ternura (Tenderness). Mistral is the subject of her own children’s book, My Name Is Gabriela: The Life of Gabriela Mistral, written by Monica Brown.

• Pablo Neruda‘s (1904-1973) love poems have made him one of the most beloved poets in the world, winning the Nobel Prize. He is featured as a character in Antonio Skarmeta’s Il Postino, which was made into a 1994 Academy Award-nominated movie, and is the subject of Roberto Ampuero’s excellent The Neruda Case, which shows him in the last days of his life as he reflects on his past loves and President Salvador Allende’s government is about to be overthrown.

• Besides Il Postino, Antonio Skarmeta has written some other memorable works, including the children’s book The Composition, named one of Scholastic Parent & Child’s 100 Greatest Books for Kids, and the play El Plebiscito, a story about the advertising campaign against President Augusto Pinochet that became No, a 2012 Oscar-nominated film.

• Isabel Allende has won worldwide acclaim for her books that depict life in Chile, including The House of the Spirits, Eva Luna, Daughter of Fortune and her most recent novel, Maya’s Notebook.

• The novels of Roberto Bolaño (1953-2003) — such as 2666, winner of the National Book Critics Award — have become more popular after his death. He also won the Romulo Gallegos Prize for The Savage Detectives.

• Winners of the Cervantes Prize, given to Spanish language writers, include Jorge Edwards, Gonzalo Rojas and Nicanor Parra. Other contemporary Chilean writers include Alejandro Zambra, right, author of Ways of Going Home.

Sources: Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Britannica

In the news: April showers books from Coelho, Anaya and Allende

April is the month notorious for rain. Fortunately, there are plenty of books to keep you entertained:

• Already out: In Rita Moreno: A Memoir, the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony-winning actress looks back on her life. Rigoberto González explores his influences on his writing in Red-Inked Retablos. The late Cuban poet Severo Sarduy’s novel Firefly examines the effects of surgery on two transvestites.

In Elizabeth Huergo’s The Death of Fidel Pérez, townspeople in Cuba believe dictator Fidel Castro – not their neighbor – has died.

• April 2: Paulo Coehlo, author of The Alchemist and Aleph, explores mysterious documents in his new book Manuscript Found in Accra. The Guardian profiled the Brazilian author.

• April 19: Rudolfo Anaya writes about a widower coping with grief in The Old Man’s Love Story. Peruvian author Santiago Roncagliolo releases Hi, This is Conchita, a series of stories ranging from the sexy to the serious.

• April 23: In Maya’s Notebook by Isabel Allende, a teenager returns to her home in Chile to cope with her past.

Awards:

• After sweeping numerous awards for Dante and Aristotle Discover the Secrets of the Universe, Benjamin Alire Sáenz won the PEN/Faulkner Award for his book of short stories, Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club. His publishers at Cinco Puntos Press talked about the book to The Washington Post.

• Saenz, poets Richard Blanco and Eduardo Corral and academic Ramón H. Rivera-Servera are among the Latinos nominated for prizes at the 25^th Annual Lambda Literary Awards, which goes to books about the LGBT experience. The winners will be announced in June.

• The Guardian reports that Junot Díaz won the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank award for his short story “Miss Lora,” which appeared in his book, This is How You Lose Her. Díaz also appeared on The Colbert Report last week, promoting Freedom University, a college for undocumented immigrants.

• The Westchester Fiction Award, which honors literature for young adults, nominated Saenz’s Dante and Aristotle and Guadalupe Garcia McCall’s Summer of the Mariposas.

Events:

• Now-June 9: The Amherst, Mass.-based The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art is presenting the exhibit “Latino Folk Tales,” about children’s literature aimed at young Hispanics, according to the Amherst Gazette. The exhibit will later show in University Center, Mich.; Phoenix; and Marshall, Texas.

• April 5-July 21: A three-month celebration in New York City will honor of Spanish playwright Federico Garcia Lorca. His book about his experiences living in the city, Poet in New York, will be reissued.

• April 6-7: Latino Literacy Now will play host to the 14th Annual Chicago Latino Book & Family Festival in Cicero, Ill.

• April 18-21: Raquel Cepeda, author of Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina; Domingo Martinez, author of The Boy Kings of Texas; and children’s writers Pat Mora and Duncan Tonatiuh will be among the writers at the Arkansas Literary Festival in Little Rock.

• April 19-21: The Border Book Festival in New Mexico explores the Camino Real de La Tierra Adentro.

• April 20-21: The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books features Luis Alfaro, Gustavo Arellano, Alex Espinoza, Manuel Gonzales, Reyna Grande, Luis J. Rodriguez, Héctor Tobar and Luis Alberto Urrea.

• April 30: Día de los niños, El día de los libros/Children’s Day, Book Day – created by children’s author Pat Mora – celebrates its 17^th anniversary this year. Find out about activities going on in your area.

Features:

• The Los Angeles Times wrote about the making of the movie version of Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me Ultima, which got help from an heiress of the Wal-Mart fortune.

• Tony Díaz, leader of the Librotraficantes movement that brought banned books to Arizona, is now fighting a similar attempt in his home state of Texas, where legislators have introduced a bill in which ethnic studies courses would not count toward college graduation, according to the Texas Observer. The Los Angeles Times has noted an increase in interest in ethnic studies since the ban in Arizona took place.

• CBS Morning News featured Cuban-American poet Richard Blanco, who presented the poem at President Obama’s inauguration earlier this year.

• Publishing Perspectives profiled Dolores Redondo, a Basque writer who specializes in mysteries.

Also this month:

• April is National Poetry Month. Read about some great Latino poets.

• The Pulitzer Prizes will be announced April 15. Find out about Latino writers who have won the prestigious American award for journalism and literary arts.

• Celebrating birthdays this month: Nobel Prize winners Gabriela Mistral, José Echegaray and Vicente Aleixandre, as well as the late Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño.

The Hispanic Reader is one year old today!

It’s The Hispanic Reader’s one-year anniversary! Since my first post, I’ve talked to eight authors, marked 18 writers’ birthdays, reviewed 37 books and written 117 posts. To celebrate, I’m giving you a couple of presents.

First, I created a Features Index that includes links to those author interviews and profiles; lists of books for special occasions (from Christmas to quinceañeras); and features about Latino literature, such as a look at writers who have won the Nobel and Pulitzer Prizes. (I already have an index of book reviews.)

Second, I’ve created a trivia quiz about Latino literature from my posts and book reviews in the past year. (You can find more information about the answers below the quiz.) Good luck and have fun!

1. The answer is D. In the 2001 movie, the flighty Sara (Kate Beckinsale) writes her name and phone number in a copy of Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera and tells Jonathan (John Cusack), who she just met, that if their love is meant to be, he will find that copy in a bookstore. Appropriate book since Cholera is about a man who waits 50 years for the woman he loves.

2. The answer is A. Although he is considered one of the top storytellers in Latino literature, Borges never won the Nobel. Only 12 Latinos have, including Paz, Saramago and Vargas Llosa. But Borges did get a Google doodle on his birthday.

3. The answer is B. Luis Valdez began directing plays on a flatbed truck and union halls during the Delano Grape Strike of the 1960s. His theater company is aptly named El Teatro Campesino. Considered the father of Latino theater, he wrote the play Zoot Suit and the directed the movie version and La Bamba.

4. The answer is C. In Il Postino, Pablo Neruda helps an Italian postal carrier woo his love. The 1994 film, based on an Antonio Skarmeta book, earned a Best Picture nomination. The other answers were books – by Laura Esquivel, Isabel Allende and Carlos Fuentes – that also were made into movies.

5. The answer is B. Loving Pedro Infante by Denise Chávez takes place in the tiny fictional town of Cabritoville, near El Paso.

6. The answer is B. Malín Alegría dons the elaborate dress in honor of her book Estrelle’s Quinceañera, one of many books about the popular Hispanic tradition. Veronica Chambers wrote the Magdalena and Marisol books; Diana López penned Choke; and Lorraine López authored The Realm of Hungry Spirits.

7. The answer is D. Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig is considered one of the most famous works in Latino literature of the last 50 years.

8. The answer is A. Hanks read Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude in the classic comedy caper.

9. The answer is D. Quiara Alegría Hudes won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 2012 for her play, Water by the Spoonful. Hudes, who also wrote 26 Miles and co-wrote the Tony-winner In the Heights, is one of the few Latinos to win the American award for literary arts and journalism. Although they have not won the Pulitzer, Julia Alvarez, Sandra Cisneros and Cristina García have written novels that have received strong critical acclaim.

10. The answer is C. Pablo Neruda knew Gabriela Mistral when he was growing up in Temuco, Chile. Fuentes and Paz are from Mexico. Allende is from Chile, but a generation younger than Neruda. Her uncle, President Salvador Allende, was friends with Neruda, a relationship depicted in Roberto Ampuero’s The Neruda Case.

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Filed under Features

Tagged as Antonio Skarmeta, Carlos Fuentes, Cristina Garcia, Denise Chavez, Diana Lopez, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Gabriela Mistral, Isabel Allende, Jorge Luis Borges, Jose Saramago, Julia Alvarez, Laura Esquivel, Lorraine Lopez, Luis Valdez, Malin Alegria, Manuel Puig, Mario Vargas Llosa, Octavio Paz, Pablo Neruda, Quiara Alegia Hudes, Roberto Ampuero, Sandra Cisneros, Veronica Chambers

July 12, 2012 · 7:00 am

Happy birthday, Pablo Neruda!

Pablo Neruda was born July 12, 1904, and died Sept. 23, 1973. He is Latino literature’s best known poet, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971.

He grew up in Temuco, Chile, where he knew future Nobel Prize-winning poet Gabriela Mistral, and started writing as a young boy. He wrote his poetry while serving as a diplomat and in the Chilean Senate. While best known for his love poems, Neruda’s Communist viewpoints are reflected in works such as Canto General.

His popularity has made him the subject of two novels. In Antonio Skarmeta’s Il Postino, he inspires an Italian postal carrier to write poetry to woo a young lady. The book was made into the 1994 Academy Award-nominated movie. (The DVD includes a 30-minute feature about his life, with celebrities such as Madonna and Samuel L. Jackson reading his works.) In Roberto Ampuero’s excellent The Neruda Case, Neruda is shown in the last days of his life – reflecting on his past loves as he is dying of cancer and the Chilean government is about to be overthrown.

If you want to introduce children to Neruda, check out Monica Brown’s Pablo Neruda, Poet of the People and Pam Muñoz Ryan’s award-winning The Dreamer.

Read more about Neruda on the Poetry Foundation website and the Poets.org website.

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Filed under Author Profiles, Children's Books, Poetry

Tagged as Antonio Skarmeta, Gabriela Mistral, Monica Brown, Pablo Neruda, Pam Munoz Ryan, Roberto Ampuero

April 10, 2012 · 6:30 am

Latino poets, from the romantic to the contemporary

April marks National Poetry Month – a genre Latinos have excelled in. Here’s a look at some prominent Hispanic poets.

• When you think poetry, many people think of Pablo Neruda, right. Known for his beautiful love poems, they inspired Antonio Skarmeta’s novel Il Postino, in which Neruda appears as a character. The book was made into the 1994 Academy Award-nominated movie, Il Postino.

• Five of the 12 Latino Nobel Prize in Literature winners, including Neruda, were poets. The others are Chilean Gabriela Mistral, left, known for her poems about children and motherhood; Octavio Paz, who wrote about his homeland of Mexico; Juan Ramon Jimenez, who described village life in his native Spain; and Spainiard Vicente Aleixandre, known for his surreal poems. William Carlos Williams, whose mother was Puerto Rican, appears to be the only writer with Latino roots to win the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.

• Two prominent Latino poets recently earned the title of Poet Laureate from their places of residence. Juan Felipe Herrera was named California’s first Latino Poet Laureate. Carmen Tafolla, right, earned that same title from the city of San Antonio.

• Some prominent novelists have written books of poetry. Check out Loose Women by Sandra Cisneros, Vatos and other books by Luis Alberto Urrea and various collections by Gary Soto and Julia Alvarez. Other contemporary poets include Martín Espada, left, and Rigoberto González. For spoken word poetry, try Carlos Andrés Gómez.

• If you’re looking for a collection of poetry, check out The FSG Book of Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry: An Anthology, edited by Ilan Stavans. Want current poetry? Read Huizache and other literary magazines and the Con Tinta: Chicano/Latino Writer’s Collective Facebook page. And peruse the websites of The Poetry Foundation and Poets.org from the Academy of American Poets for poems and biographies.

Anyone I miss? Let me know in the comments.