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May 6th, 2021 (13:30 - 15:00 Boston | 19:30 – 21:00 Madrid

Trends in Spanish-Language Literature: Granta’s New Selection of Emerging Writers, 2021

With Editor Valerie Miles and Writers Mateo García Elizondo, Dainerys Machado Vento, and Michel Nieva.

 

This event celebrates the launch of Granta Best of Young Spanish Language Novelists 2. Founded in 1889 by students at Cambridge University as a periodical of student politics, badinage, and literary enterprise, Granta was transformed during the 1980s into the literary quarterly it is known as today, following an American student’s initiative to include American fiction, which was not well-known in Britain at the time. The journal continued to evolve, and in 2003 another American editor, living in Barcelona, realized that Spanish-language literature was not particularly well-known in the Anglo world and that Latin American and Spanish writers weren't reading each other. Granta’s publisher, Sigrid Rausing, then encouraged the magazine to open more space for writing in translation, and in 2010 the first of the journal’s famous lists of writers in a language other than English came out: “Best of Young Spanish Language Novelists.” Ten years later, Granta has once again selected 25 emerging writers to mark a new, vibrant generation of the Spanish-speaking world. 

This session with the Observatorio is an opportunity to meet and interact with three of these young writers and to learn more about this dynamic literary scene. Professor, journalist, literary critic, translator, and editor of this special issue Valerie Miles will introduce the journal, the selection process, and the writers participating in this conversation–Mateo García Elizondo, Dainerys Machado Vento, and Michel Nieva–in addition to serving as moderator for the session. Each writer will introduce the piece for which they were recognized and share an excerpt in its original Spanish and in English translation. 

Language: English and Spanish       

Online via Zoom 

RSVP with full name and email address: info-observatory@fas.harvard.edu

 

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