Ilan Stavans, noted Latino critic, editor, and author, will be making a special visit to discuss his recently published memoir on language, On Borrowed Words, and the many issues it raises.
Born in Mexico City, a descendant of Jews from Russia and Poland, and now a professor at Amherst College, Stavans has often explored living "within the hyphen," between Latin America and the United States, between Spanish and English and Yiddish and Hebrew. Stavans has traversed these multiple borders of culture and language in his many books, including The Hispanic Condition, The Riddle of Cantinflas: Essays on Popular Hispanic Culture, Art and Anger: Essays on Politics and the Imagination, and The One-Handed Pianist and Other Stories.
The New York Times writes: "Stavans's impulse is to broaden, not to narrow; he finds understanding through the complications of identity, not through the easy gestures of ethnic politics." Stavans is also the editor of the Norton Anthology of Latino Fiction, Hopscotch: A Cultural Review, The Oxford Book of Jewish Stories, The Oxford Book of Latin American Essays, Tropical Synagogues, and New World: Young Latino Writers.
Stavans has won numerous prizes for his work, including the Guggenheim Fellowship and the Latino Literature Prize. He holds a doctorate from Columbia University. Please help us welcome this extraordinary writer and critic to the Hudson Valley Writers' Center.
Suggested Donation: $5 ($3 for members)
This series made possible in part by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Westchester Arts Council with funds from Westchester County Government, corporations and individuals and with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency. Additional funding has been provided by the Gannett Foundation and the Bydale Foundation.