En pocas palabras: Javier J. Jaspe
Washington D.C.
The 2024 National Book Festival was held in the
nation’s capital at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center on Saturday,
August 24, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Several programs were livestreamed, and video
of all talks can be viewed online after the Festival’s conclusion.
EN: https://www.loc.gov/events/2024-national-book-festival/
Una lista completa de los autores que participaron en
el Festival Nacional del Libro de 2024 (FNL2024) puede verse
EN: https://www.loc.gov/events/2024-national-book-festival/authors/
La serie que iniciamos hoy se refiere a escritores de origen latino
que participaron en el FNL2024. Su objeto no consiste en realizar un análisis
de su obra, sino el de publicar material encontrado en Internet relacionado con
la misma y sus autores. Los textos de Internet se transcribirán en itálicas, en
español o inglés, según sea el caso, con indicación de su fuente. Esta primera
entrega se refiere a Marie Arana. Veamos:
Marie Arana:
Marie Arana is a prizewinning author and
literary critic and former literary director of the Library of Congress. Among
her numerous books are the National Book Award finalist “American Chica”; the
novels “Cellophane” and “Lima Nights”; the biography “Bolívar: American
Liberator” (winner of The Los Angeles Times Book Prize); and a sweeping history
of Latin America, “Silver, Sword and Stone.” Winner of the American Academy of
Arts and Letters Award for Literature in 2020, Arana has been an executive at
two major publishing houses, a judge for the National Book Award and the
Pulitzer Prize, a Latin America columnist for The New York Times, a television
commentator on books and publishing and editor-in-chief of Book World at The
Washington Post. Her new book, “LatinoLand: A Portrait of America's Largest and
Least Understood Minority,” is featured at the 2024 National Book Festival.
EN: https://www.loc.gov/events/2024-national-book-festival/authors/item/n00027341/marie-arana/
Selected Works at the Library of Congress
EN: https://www.loc.gov/search/?all=true&sb=date_desc&uf=contributor:arana,%20marie
Entrevista
en el FNL2024:
America's Largest and Least Understood Minority:
Marie Arana on "LatinoLand"
Journalist and writer Marie Arana has taken on a nearly
impossible task in “LatinoLand”: write an overview of Latino America. Latino
Americans make up nearly 20% of the American population but they are not a
monolith or a single group. Join us as Arana talks about her work interviewing
and depicting Latino Americans, in conversation with María Peña.
Video EN: https://www.loc.gov/item/webcast-11475/
Website de
la autora:
https://mariearana.net/
Ensayo de
Jonathan Yardley sobre Marie Arana en el Website de la autora:
EN: https://mariearana.net/ensayo-de-jonathan-yardley-sobre-marie-arana/
Marie
Arana es una auténtica ciudadana hemisférica. Su escritura explora y abraza los
dos lados de las Américas, tal como ella misma lo ha hecho durante toda su
vida. Nacida en Lima, de padre peruano y madre “yankee”, se siente igualmente a
gusto en ambas culturas. Tiene la doble nacionalidad de Perú y Estados Unidos,
posee residencias en ambos países, y es apasionadamente leal a ambos. En los
últimos años, mientras la presencia latina en Estados Unidos se ha vuelto cada
vez más grande e importante, Marie ha trabajado incansablemente para explicar
cada cultura a la otra.
Ella ha
hecho del biculturalismo y todas sus ramificaciones los temas centrales de su
escritura. Hasta la fecha su tema principal ha sido América Latina en general,
específicamente Perú, y ha escrito
relativamente poco acerca de Estados Unidos, acerca de una serie de
pasajes de sus premiadas memorias “American Chica: Two Worlds, one Childhood”
(Chica Americana: Dos Mundos, Una Infancia). Sin embargo, Estados Unidos es
absolutamente fundamental para su trabajo, porque ella escribe únicamente en inglés.
Por lo tanto, su creación es por naturaleza propia bicultural e intercultural,
teniendo muchos de los temas que exploraron los grandes escritores del “boom”
latinoamericano –Gabriel García Márquez, Carlos Fuentes, Julio Cortázar, Mario
Vargas Llosa- pero en inglés y desde un punto de vista que es en tando de
América del Norte como del Sur.
Arana
simpatiza con la vanguardia literaria, de Vladimir Nabokiov (uno de sus
escritores favoritos) a Roberto Bolaño, pero a pesar de que su prosa es a
menudo muy inventiva, no practica los juegos de palabras. Su prosa refleja su
profundo interés y conocimiento de la linguistica (área en la que tiene un
Máster) y los idiomas. Habla con fluidez español, inglés y francés, se
especializó en ruso en la Universidad Northwestern y todavía lo lee y lo habla
con facilidad, y tiene italiano y chino mandarin “de calle”. Aunque hablaba
inglés desde pequeña, gracias a su madre, creció inmersa en el ambiente de
habla española de Lima y los otros parajes donde vivía su familia en Perú, lo
que hace aún más notable que el inglés sea ahora su lengua primaria y lo
escriba con una fluidez notable.
Aparte de
Nabokov y las plumas ya mencionadas del “boom”, los escritores que más admira
son Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Jorge Luis Borges, Vladimir Voinovich (cuya obra editó
en 1980 mientras trabajaba en Harcourt Brace Jovanovich), Flannery O’Connor,
Joseph Conrad, León Tolstói, Stanley Elkin (cuya obra editó en Simon &
Schuster), y Jane Austen. Un número de críticos etiquetó su novela “Cellophane”
(Celofán) como realismo mágico, y aunque Marie estaba halagada de ser comparada
con García Márquez, rechaza el término en sí mismo. Su trabajo, como el de los
maestros latinoamericanos, se basa en la realidad cotidiana de la vida de los
latinos, que incluye conexiones con lo espiritual y el otro mundo, que no son
“mágicas” a los ojos de quienes las experimentan, sino simplemente la vida
misma.
La prosa
de Arana puede ser lírica, como en “American Chica: Two Worlds, One Childhood”
(Chica Americana: Dos Mundos, Una Infancia) y, sobre todo, “Cellophane”
(Celofán), pero es igualmente capaz de escribir en un estilo magro muscular,
como en su novela “Lima Nights” (Noches Limeñas) o en las muchas piezas de
periodismo que ha hecho desde que llegó a The Washington Post en 1993. Su
estilo de escritura no se deriva solamente de su formación linguistica y la
lectura a profundidad, sino de su apasionado amor por la música. Es una
consumada pianista. Un piano de cola Steinway, que desearía tener más tiempo
para tocar, es la pieza central de su sala de estar en Washington. Sus gustos
musicales corren, literalmente, desde Mozart a Motown. De niña estudió ballet
con Alexandra Danilova, mientras soñaba con ser una cantante de ópera. Le gusta
Bach, Mendelssohn, Chopin y Rachmaninov, pero también Neil Young, Joe Cocker,
Marvin Gaye y Santana.
Además de
la música, sus actividades favoritas giran en torno a la mesa y su familia. Es
una cocinera consumada e innovadora, cuya especialidad es la comida peruana,
que en los últimos años amantes de la gastronomía de todo el mundo han llegado
a considerar como una de las mejores del planeta. Cocina peruano si está en
Washington o en Lima, pero prefiere este último porque los ingredientes
esenciales –papas, limones, mariscos, Pisco- son nativos y frescos. Cuando
están en Lima, ella y su marido son visitantes frecuentes de los increíbles
restaurantes de la ciudad, siempre comenzando el almuerzo con un perfecto Pisco
Sour.
Marie
tiene dos hijos adultos: Adam, que trabaja como ingeniero director de software
en Silicon Valley, y Lalo, que vive en Londres. Sus nietos, Aidan, Ryder y Max,
representan un sinfín de alegrías para Arana, aunque quien la ve no puede creer
que sea abuela.
Jonathan
Yardley
Washington
D.C.
Junio
2010
BIOGRAPHIES
Pen/Faulkner
EN: https://www.penfaulkner.org/2020/10/30/marie-arana/
Marie Arana (she/her) is the Literary Director of the Library
of Congress. She was born in Peru, moved to the United States at the age of 9,
and began her career in book publishing, where she became Vice President and
Senior Editor at Harcourt Brace as well as Simon & Schuster publishers. In
1993, she joined The Washington Post as Deputy Editor of Book
World and became Editor in Chief a few years later—a position she held for ten
years. From 2010 to 2019, she was a Writer at Large for The Washington Post and
a Senior Advisor to the U.S. Librarian of Congress. Arana is the author of six
books, among them her memoir American Chica, which was a finalist for the 2001
National Book Award and winner of Books for a Better Life; The Writing Life, a
collection of essays about how writers live and work; and two highly acclaimed
novels Cellophane and Lima Nights. Her
biography of Simón Bolívar (Bolívar: American Liberator) was awarded the Los
Angeles Times Book Prize in 2014. Her history of Latin America, Silver, Sword, and Stone, was
named best nonfiction book of the year by the American Library Association.
Arana has been the director of the National Book Festival and director of John
F. Kennedy Center’s literary programs for many years and has chaired juries for
the Pulitzer Prize as well as the National Book Award. Her commentary has been
published in The New York Times, National Geographic, USA Today, Washington
Post, El País, El Comercio, El Tiempo, and many other
publications throughout the Americas and Europe.
/////////////////
AS/COA
EN: https://www.as-coa.org/speakers/marie-arana
Marie Arana
Biographer, Essayist, and Novelist
Marie Arana was born in Lima, Peru, the daughter of a
Peruvian father and an American mother. She is the author of the critically
praised memoir American Chica, which was a finalist for a National
Book Award and the PEN-Memoir Award, and the winner of a Books for a Better
Life Award. She is also the author of two novels, Cellophane and Lima Nights,
as well as The
Writing Life, a collection from her well-known column for The
Washington Post. Her commentary has been published in The
Washington Post, USA Today, The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Week, Civilization, Smithsonian, National
Geographic, and numerous other publications. Currently, she is a
writer-at-large for The Washington Post Book World and a senior
advisor to the Librarian of Congress. She began her career in book publishing,
becoming Vice President and Senior Editor at both Harcourt Brace and Simon
& Schuster publishers, and eventually serving as editor-in-chief of The
Washington Post Book World for many years. Arana has served on
the boards of directors of the National Book Critics Circle and the National
Association of Hispanic Journalists. She has directed literary events for the
AmericArtes Festival at the Kennedy Center and the Library of Congress’s
National Book Festival. Ms. Arana holds a BA in Russian Language and Literature
from Northwestern University, an MA in Linguistics and Sociolinguistics from
Hong Kong University, and a certificate of scholarship (Mandarin language) from
Yale University in China. She has been a judge for the Pulitzer Prize and the
National Book Award as well as for the National Book Critics Circle. She lives
in Washington, D.C., and Lima, Peru, with her husband, the literary critic
Jonathan Yardley.
////////////////
Wikipedia
EN: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Arana
Reportajes/Entrevistas
Bookend: Marie Arana On
Bringing Latin America To Life
By
Jonathan Wilson
Listen: https://wamu.org/story/13/05/31/bookend_marie_arana_on_bringing_latin_america_to_life/
May 31, 2013
Marie Arana is the former editor-in-chief of the Washington Post
Book World, and is a literary fixture in the D.C. region. During her 17 years
at the Post, Arana shaped the city’s bookworm tendencies. She has also helped
plan literary events for the Kennedy Center, organized the National Book
Festival, and written a memoir and a couple of novels of her own. Her latest
work is a biography of the Venezuelan military and political leader, Simón
Bolívar. Jonathan Wilson sat down with Arana on the sixth floor of the Madison
Building at the Library of Congress, where she currently serves as a
Distinguished Scholar.
Excerpts from the interview:
On her work:
“It’s true, all my books have been very different. But I tell
people, in fact, they’re all part of the same ‘building’ in a sense. I’ve been
trying to build a building in which I explain to American readers who Latin
Americans are, how we think, how our history has been so different. Even the
novels, which are based on my family, the memoir also, which was based on my
childhood, and now, this biography of a quintessential Latin American hero; it
all is of a piece, even though it doesn’t look that way.”
On power:
“You begin to think about power and how people get it and how
people lose it when you live in Washington, D.C. And certainly, Bolivar’s story
is about gaining power out of nowhere, and then losing it, drastically. It was
probably very colored by the fact that I was sitting in Washington, D.C.”
On working:
“I’m lucky to have worked at a newspaper because the sense of
deadline is always there. I can’t afford to suffer the blank page syndrome.
Something has got to go down. So what I do is I do my best writing when the sun
goes down. I wish it weren’t that way, because I end up, you know, at 4 in the
morning, still writing. But that’s when I’m most creative, at night, when
everything’s quiet and I’ve got a room to myself and no phones are ringing.”
On writing:
“When I’m writing, at first, I feel like it’s disastrous. I feel
like I’m not getting what I want down, but I do it anyway. I put it down, and
it’s a muddy mess — the next morning when I get up, and I slap it around, it
gets better.”
[Music: “Frost Bit” by Mello
Music Group from Odd Seasons / “Our Lips Are Sealed” by Twilight Trio from Pure
Instrumental: Pop It, Vol. 7]
AUDIO EXTRA: Arana reading her account of how one of Bolivar’s
mistresses, Manuela Sainz, saved him from assassination in Bogota, Colombia.
////////////////////////
Inside
the South American Heart: Marie Arana’s “Bolivar: American Liberator”
The
former Post Book World editor talks about her vivid portrait of South American
revolutionary Simon Bolívar.
Written
by John Wilwol
Published on April 9, 2013
EN: https://www.washingtonian.com/2013/04/09/inside-the-south-american-heart-marie-aranas-bolivar-american-liberator/
//////////////////////////
BookPage
LatinoLand By Marie
Arana
Review by Alejandro
Ramirez
EN: https://www.bookpage.com/reviews/latinoland-marie-arana-book-review/
Reporter Marie Arana paintes a thoughtful portrait of how Latinos
have shaped—and been shaped by---the United States in this punchy cultural
history
The Latino community doesn’t exist as a monolith. Latin Americans
hail from over 20 countries, each with its own unique ethnicity and culture.
African, Spanish and Indigenous influences vary wildly but are consistently
present in most groups. Labels like Hispanic or Latino don’t snugly fit this
growing population, and some people shrug them off entirely.
Lauded author and Washington Post columnist Marie Arana admits
early on in LatinoLand: A Portrait of America’s Largest and Least Understood
Minority that she is “working with a deficit” in her attempt to
capture the diverse experience of American Latinos. Yet by embracing the
variety of this diaspora—and its people’s conflicting views on race, religion
and politics—she comes as close to success as one can get.
The book at first functions as a survey, with brief chapters on
Puerto Ricans, Mexican Americans, Cuban Americans and other Latino groups.
While these historical accounts might not unearth anything unknown to Latin
American scholars, Arana’s punchy writing style is engaging, informative and
full of pleasant surprises, like her tale about the first Dominican to settle
New York in the 1500s, centuries before a bodega opened in Washington
Heights.
Arana also tackles the plurality of Latino identities from other
angles, including the morphing religious affiliations of Hispanic Americans and
a thoughtful dismantling of the myth of the “Latino vote.” Short profiles
contextualize the broader themes and history lessons; some of the stories
related here are harrowing, some amusing, others mundane. The horrors of
colonialism, segregation and genocide are everpresent.
LatinoLand features interviews with an impressive swath of Latinos,
from undocumented custodians and emboldened activists to federal policymakers
and religious leaders—though at times there does seem to be a reliance on
higher-educated professionals. While Arana celebrates the diversity of American
Latinos and doesn’t push for any kind of assimilation, she also appeals to
traditional American values when making the case for Latino acceptance,
pointing to their contributions to business, academia and the military. But her
most salient argument is that Latinos have contributed so much more to this
country than what’s acknowledged in the mainstream; by spotlighting unsung
heroes like climate scientist Mario Molina and labor champion Dolores Huerta,
she gives them their due.
As Arana pieces together a vibrant collage of American Latino
lives, she communicates her belief that solidarity is possible among this
fractured cohort. Perhaps, one thinks, it can emerge from the shared experience
of being underestimated and undervalued.
/////////////////
Foreign Affairs
LatinoLand: A Portrait of America’s Largest and Least Understood
Minority
By
Marie Arana
Simon
& Schuster, 2024, 576 pp.
Reviewed
by Richard Feinberg
Published
on August 20, 2024
EN: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/latinoland-portrait-americas-largest-and-least-understood-minority
LatinoLand is a
sweeping, celebratory history of the diverse Latino contributions to American
life. Arana begins with a terrifyingly bleak assessment of the genocidal racism
of the early Spanish conquistadors and the biased colorism that continues to
plague the Western Hemisphere. But as the captivating narrative progresses, it
pivots to a festive, impressionistic appreciation of Latino success stories
across professions, even if in the United States, in the author’s view, Latinos
too often remain underrepresented. At the core of the book are the complex
tensions between the imperatives of assimilation and maintaining one’s cultural
identity—epitomized by Arana’s own deep loyalties toward both her motherland,
Peru, and her adopted home, the United States. Arana struggles to extract
distinctive, enduring Latino traits from the vast multiplicity of Latino
national, ethnic, and class backgrounds beyond the commonplace values of
“family, work, and joy.” As the over 200 interviews reported in the book
faithfully document, the Catholic Church and the Democratic Party no longer
bind Latinos together, and many third-generation Latinos are no longer fluent
in Spanish.
VIDEOS
Marie
Arana | Latinoland: A Portrait of America’s Largest and Least Understood
Minority
EN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHtvMPVHkA4
115:
A Nation with No Name… with “LatinoLand” Author & Acclaimed Journalist
Marie Arana
EN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO7ucRWNnhs
Writing
Latino History - Marie Arana & Juan Martinez
EN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI3tjcgi0AQ
Marie
Arana, "LatinoLand" (Book TV)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDN5bAsWxgc&t=15s
Marie’s
TED Talk on Bolivar
EN: https://mariearana.net/maries-ted-talk-on-bolivar/
También EN:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reFr06PGB3c
2024
Inter-American Dialogue Leadership Award
EN: https://www.thedialogue.org/press-and-media/releases/marie-arana-to-receive-prestigious-inter-american-dialogue-leadership-award/
Marie
Arana to receive prestigious Inter-American Dialogue Leadership Award
Washington, DC – Marie Arana, Peruvian American
author, critic, and journalist will receive the Distinguished Leadership for the Americas Award for Contributions to
Literature and Inter-American Understanding at the IX
Annual Leadership for the Americas Awards Gala on October 1,
2024, at the Organization of American States (OAS). Awards are presented
each year to individuals or organizations committed to the Dialogue’s mission
of advancing democratic governance, shared prosperity, and social equity in the
Western Hemisphere. This annual event brings together diverse leaders from
across the Americas whose exceptional contributions have been instrumental in
addressing the most pressing challenges facing the region.
Arana is the award-winning author of LatinoLand: A Portrait of America’s Largest
and Least Understood Minority, American Chica (finalist in 2001 for the
National Book Award), Silver, Sword, and Stone (winner of the 2019
American Library Association best nonfiction book), and Bolivar: American Liberator (winner
of the 2013 Los Angeles Times Book Prize). Arana has held prominent positions
in the literary world, including executive roles at Harcourt Brace and Simon
& Schuster publishing houses, a judge for both the National Book Award and
the Pulitzer Prize, and editor in chief of Book World at The Washington Post. She served as the
inaugural Literary Director of the Library of Congress and has recently
appeared on the PBS program History
with David Rubenstein. Her writing focusing on the Americas and the
Latino experience in the US is also featured in The Washington Post and The New York Times.
“Arana’s work explores the historical themes that characterize
and connect the Americas while intertwining them with her life story. Her books
provide in-depth analyses of the cultural, political, and economic forces
shaping the region, while exploring the nuanced experiences of Latino
communities in the United States,” said Inter-American Dialogue President and
CEO, Dr. Rebecca Bill
Chavez.
Previous honorees include, Djamila Ribeiro, Coordinator of the
Plural Feminisms Institute, Pierpaolo Barbieri, CEO and Founder of Ualá &
Executive Director of Greenmantle, Juan Manuel Santos, Nobel Laureate and
former President of Colombia and Luiza Trajano, Chairwoman of Magazine Luiza &
Chair of Grupo Mulheres do Brasil.
