Photo by Violette Bule

Conversation about the book Gravedad. Poemas reunidos, by Mariela Dreyfus.

Featuring the author,Julio Ortega (Brown University) and Ina Salazar (Université de Caen-Basse Normandie). Introduced by Lila Zemborain.

Mariela Dreyfus is a Peruvian poet, essayist and translator who has lived in New York since 1989. She holds a Ph.D. in Latin American Literature from Columbia University. As a poet she has published the poetry collections Memorias de Electra(Lima, 1984), Placer fantasma(Lima, 1993), Ónix(Lima, 2001), Pez(Lima, 2005) –translated into English as Pez/Fish(New Delhi, 2014)-, Morir es un arte(Lima, 2010; 2014), Cuaderno músico precedido de Morir es un arte(Madrid, 2015), all of them included in the single volume, Gravedad. Poemas reunidos(New York, 2017). She has published the book-length essay Soberanía y transgresión: César Moro(Lima, 2008), and co-edited the critical volumes Nadie sabe mis cosas. Reflexiones en torno a la poesía de Blanca Varela(Lima, 2007), and Esta mística de relatar cosas sucias. Ensayos en torno a la obra de Carmen Ollé (Lima, 2016). Her translations of Edward Dorn, Sylvia Plath, Diane Wakoski and AI, are included in the anthology Muestra de poesía norteamericana contemporánea(Lima, 1987). Her more recent translations include: La diosa de las Américas. Escritos sobre la Virgen de Guadalupe, by Ana Castillo(Nueva York, 2000), and An August Snow & Other Poems / Nieve de agosto y otros poemas, by Daniel Thomas Moran (New York, 2014). Dreyfus’s poetry is included in several anthologies of Peruvian and Latin American poetry, most recently: Espléndida iracundia: Antología consultada de la poesía peruana. 1968-2008(Lima, 2012), Kloaka. Antología poética(Madrid, 2014), Assymetries. Anthology of Peruvian Poetry(Bloomington, 2014), and Poesía soy yo. Poetas en español del siglo XX(1886-1960)(Madrid, 2016).Her book _Placer fantasma_was awarded the National Poetry Award Asociación Peruano-Japonesa in 1992. In 2014 she was appointed Personalidad Meritoria de la Cultura by Ministerio de Cultura del Perú for her contribution to poetry. In 2016 and 2018 she was granted a research fellowship by the Global of Research Initatives (GRI) program at New York University. She is the Graduate Adviser of the Creative Writing in Spanish Program at NYU, where she also teaches workshops in poetry and literary translation.

Ina Salazar (Lima, 1959) is a professor of Spanish-American literature at the University of Caen Normandie (France). Her activity as a researcher focuses on modern and contemporary Hispano-American poetry and more precisely in Peruvian poetry. She has published articles in various magazines of France, the United States and Peru, about the work of major poets as César Vallejo, Carlos Oquendo de Amat, Emilio Adolfo Westphalen, Blanca Varela or Jorge Eduardo Eielson. She is also interested in the processes and ruptures that lead to the current Peruvian poetry. Lately she has published the monographs _La poesía ante la muerte de Dios, César Vallejo, Jorge Eduardo Eielson, Blanca Varela,_Lima PUCP, 2015, and _La substancia humana de la poesía, aproximaciones a la obra poética de César Vallejo,_Paris, PUF / CNED, 2016.

Julio Ortega (Peru, 1942) has taught at many universities as Pittsburgh, Yale, Texas (Austin), NYU, California, Santa Barbara, Florida, Maryland, Brandeis and Harvard University, and since 1988 at Brown University, where he was chairman of Hispanic Studies and director of Transatlantic Project, critic paradigm initiated by his work. He has been Simon Bolivar Professor at Cambridge University and Visiting Professor at Colonia University. He is the author of Transatlantic Translations and Adiós, Ayacucho. His work has been appreciated by Lezama Lima, Paz, Cortázar, Fuentes, Sarduy and Diamela Eltit.  

Sponsored by NYU King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center.

In Spanish. Reception to follow.