Noche de novelas II— Story Week Edition

Wednesday, March 19, 7:00 p.m.
Humboldt Park Fieldhouse, 1400 N. Humboldt Dr.  (North of Division)

Hosted by Juana Iris Goergen with readings by Raúl Dorantes and Fernando Olszanski, and featuring Valeria Luiselli—as a part of Story Week 2014 with Columbia College’s Creative Creative Writing Department. In this month’s Palabra Pura, authors read excerpts of their novels in Spanish, with English supertitles. See and hear the compelling work of these acclaimed authors through a truly bilingual experience. The event is hosted by Juana Iris Goergen, and music will be provided by Bianca Lisa Araujo.

Featured Writer: Valeria Luiselli

Valeria Luiselli was born in Mexico City in 1983 and grew up in South Africa. Her novels and essays have been translated into many languages, and her work has appeared in publications including the New York Times,Granta, and McSweeney’s. Some of her recent projects include a ballet libretto for the choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, performed by the New York City Ballet in Lincoln Center in 2010; a pedestrian sound installation for the Serpentine Gallery in London; and a novella in installments for workers in a juice factory in Mexico. She lives in New York City.

 

 

 

 

About the Participants:

Raul Dorantes was born in Queretaro, Mexico, in 1968. He immigrated to the city of Chicago at the end of 1986. Since then, he has been an active editorial board member of several literary magazines: Fe de Erratas, Zorros y Erizos, Tropel, and Contratiempo. In 2007, together with Febronio Zatarain, he published a collection of essays titled Y nos vinimos de mojados with a prologue written by a well known Mexican author Carlos Montsivais. As a playwright, Raul Dorantes has created numerous plays some of those have been put on stage; two of them by Aguijon Theater Company: Hasta los gorriones dejan su nido (2008) and El lunes de Leon Rodriguez (2009). In 2010, his play De camino al ahorita was awarded the second prize of the national competition Nuestras Voces organized by New York based theater company Repertorio Español. Currently, Dorantes works as a professor of Latin American literature at St. Augustine College.

 

 

 

 

Fernando Olszanski was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is the author of the novel Rezos de marihuana (Marihuana Prayers), The book of short stories El orden natural de las cosas (The Natural Order of Things) which was awarded with the second place in the International Latino Book Award for Best Popular Fiction in 2011, the poetry collection Parte del polvo (Part of the Dust), and is also co-editor of the the anthology América Nuestra, Anthology of Narrative in Spanish in the United States. As a visual artist,  he has participated in exhibitions in the US, Japan, and Argentina. He is also Chief Editor of the Revista Consenso, of the Northeastern Illinois University. He holds a Master in Education from Dominican University. He has lived in Scotland, Ecuador, Japan, and currently lives in Chicago.

 

 

 

 

 

About the Host:

Juana Iris Goergen (Puerto Rico). Poet. Professor of Spanish, Latin American/U.S. Latino Literature and Peace Studies at DePaul University, Chicago. As a poet she has published La sal de las brujas (finalist of Letras de Oro and published by Betania 1997) and  La piel a medias (2001),  Las Ilusas/Dreamers (Vocesueltas, 2008) as well as poems published in anthologies: Astillas de luz/Shards of Light (1998), Nosotros los otros (1996) Between the Heart and the Land/Entre el corazón y la tierra (2001), Generación (2001) among others. She is the editor of the anthologies: Susurros para disipar las sombras (2011) and Rapsodia de los sentidos (2012) (Erato ediciones, Poesía en abril International Poetry Festival V & VI). She founded and co-organizes in Chicago, Poesía en abril: International Poetry Festival in Spanish. She has two unpublished poetry collections: La celda de Lilith and ContraOda al sueño americano. At present she is working in another poetry manuscript Mar en los huesos.

This event is produced in partnership with Columbia College’s Story Week and presented in special collaboration with Chicago Park District. This program is made possible by a generous grant from The Chicago Community Trust.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

City of Chicago
Rahm Emanuel, Mayor
Chicago Park District
Board of Commissioners
Michael P. Kelly, General Superintendent & CEO