Mexico in a nutshell: An overview of history through literature

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COST: $30.00 dollars per person

Mexico in a nutshell: An overview of history through literature is at the same time, a course of History and Literature, and a reading circle where we focus on selected works of fiction and non-fiction to assimilate a portrait of the country. A space to bring together imaginaries about Mexico, ours, the readers’, and those of Mexican writers, with whom we will submerge in the history of their nation, from the Aztecs to the present day.

We will refresh novels, stories, essays, and other texts with our present gaze, and we will discover works that are not that well-known north of the border. Along with a general introduction to contemporary Mexican literature and its correspondent reality, there will be specific introductions to all the works and a discussion based on the impressions of the participants and the professor.

Mexico in a nutshell will bring closer to the American public the rich and tumultuous history of the neighboring country and an understanding of its reality through great literary works and lively conversation.

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR:

ROBERTO FRÍAS - WRITER

After several years as a journalist, literary critic and cultural manager in Mexico City, where he was acquainted with the artistic field and the literary community, he moved to Barcelona, where he will live between 2001 and 2010, and learn the trades of publisher, literary translator and editorial advisor. His main employees would be Spanish publishing houses of high renown as Anagrama, Penguin Random House, Atalanta, Galaxia Gutenberg, Acantilado, Libros del asteroide, Alfaguara, among many other. He became also an advisor and reader for Antonia Kerrigan’s literary agency.

As a contributor to the literary supplements Cultura/s ––­La Vanguardia, Barcelona––and Confabulario ––El Universal, Mexico––, and the magazines Letras libres, SoHo, Chilango and National Geographic Traveller, he has published essays, reviews and features on film, literature, gastronomy and travel, as well as social and scientific subjects. Roberto writes every week about Mexico City for the cultural TV channel Canal 22, and writes and produces the podcast Patrimonio (Heritage), interviews with writers, artists and cultural managers ––available on Spotify and many other platforms.

Translator of Thomas Hardy, Oscar Wilde, Hanif Kureishi, Francisco Goldman, Elizabeth Hardwick and many others, he has also finished two novels, an opera libretto and the script for an experimental medium film. A book of short stories is his present project.

Roberto has been the recipient, on two occasions, of the prestigious Mexican grant National System of Art Creators (SNCA), bestowed by the National Fund for Culture and the Arts (FONCA), on the field of literary translation. He has been a resident at the Writer’s Centre, Norwich, UK; Yaddo, New York; Banff Centre, and the Sun Yat-sen University’s International Writers Residence, Guangzhou, China.

On the field of cultural management, Roberto has been, at the Department of Cultural Affairs of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (CulturaUNAM), Coordinator of the Chair Max Aub of Transdiscipline in Art and Technology, Coordinator of Vértice (Festival of experimental and avant-garde art) and Curator of its Expanded Literature section, among other responsibilities. At the official national homage to Octavio Paz, he was a member of the organizing committee. And a member of the Advisory Council for Banff’s International Literary Translation Center.

His workshops and conferences have been given in Mexico, United States, Canada, China and Spain.