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Hispania Features

Editorial

I extend my warmest best wishes to Estelle Irizarry, who will become the tenth Editor of this journal on January 1, 1993. I know she will work hard to maintain and expand Hispania’s aspirations for excellence and service to the members of the AATSP.

I would like to express my personal appreciation for the unprecedented support that the University of Southern California has given to me personally and to the maintenance of Hispania’s Editorial Office during the past nine and one-half years. I want to acknowledge especially the indispensable support of the late Irwin C. Lieb, former Dean of the College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences and Marshall Cohen, Dean of the Humanities Division.

In thanking all who have worked with me to produce this journal during the past nine years, and to demonstrate to the readers that an Editor depends greatly on the collaboration of others, I reproduce below the complete list of all of the Associate Editors of Hispania 1984-1992:

Alazraki, Jaime (Harvard University)
Alonso, Carlos J. (Emory University)
Araluce Cuenca, José Ramón (University of Southern California)
Armistead, Samuel G. (University of California, Davis)
Balderston, Daniel (Tulane University)
Benson, Douglas K. (Kansas State University)
Billick, David (University of Michigan)
Boudreau, Harold (University of Massachusetts)
Brushwood, John S. (University of Kansas)
Clark, Stella T. (Calif. State Univ.- San Marcos)
Daniel, Mary L. (University of Wisconsin)
Davison, Ned J. (University of Utah)
Echevarría, Roberto G. (Yale University)
Feustle, Jr., Joseph A. (University of Toledo)
Fraser, Howard M. (College of William and Mary)
Gies, David T. (University of Virginia)
Guitart, Jorge (SUNY, Buffalo)
Harmon, Ronald M. (California State University-Fullerton)
Holzapfel, Tamara (University of New Mexico)
Ilie, Paul (University of Southern California)
Irizarry, Estelle (Georgetown University)
Kadir, Djelal (University of Oklahoma)
Kerr, Lucille (University of Southern California)
Larsen, Mark D. (Utah State University)
Larson, Catherine (Indiana University)
Lipton, Gladys (University of Maryland, Baltimore County)
López Jiménez, Ivette (Universidad de Puerto Rico)
McGaha, Michael D. (Pomona College)
McMurray, George R. (Colorado State University)
Masiello, Francine (University of California, Berkeley)
Met, Myriam (Montgomery County Public Schools)
Pérez, Janet (Texas Tech University)
Pérez, Louis C. (Pennsylvania State University)
Quinn, Robert A. (Millsaps College)
Roberts, Gemma (University of Miami)
Rodríguez, Teresa Bolet (Northern Colorado University)
Severino, Alejandrino (Vanderbilt University)
Smith, Karen L. (University of Arizona)
Snow, Joseph (Michigan State University)
Solé, Yolanda R. (University of Texas, Austin)
Teschner, Richard V. (University of Texas, El Paso)
Valis, Noél (Johns Hopkins University)
Vincent, Jon S. (University of Kansas)
Walsh, Thomas J. (Georgetown University)
Wonder, John P. (University of the Pacific)
Woods, Richard D. (Trinity University)

I thank the following individuals have served as Section Heads or co-Heads of Sections during the years 1984-1992:

Correa, Rafael E. (California State University, San Bernardino)
Fernández, José B. (University of Central Florida)
Franco, Juan R. (Tarrant County Jr. College, TX)
Haggerty, Joyce (Framingham State College, MA)
Lett, Jr., John A. (The Defense Language Institute)
McArdle, Ellen C. Nugent (Raritan Valley Community College)
McClendon (Tesser), Carmen C., (University of Georgia)
Melito, Gerard (Mattatuck Community College)
Olson, Nadine (University of Georgia)




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Pavlik, Marilynn (Lyons Township High School, IL)
Salazar (Parr), Carmen (Los Angeles Valley College)
Sauter, Silvia E. (Kansas State University).

I offer special thanks to two individuals who, without serving officially either as Associate Editors or Section Heads have contributed enormously to our journal by serving on numerous occasions as readers: Alfonso González (California State University-Los Angeles) and Matthew D. Stroud (Trinity University)

I also wish to express my great appreciation for the work of the following individuals who have served in vital positions during the time I have been Editor: my Editorial Assistant for nine years, Margarita Elsa Galarza, the two Book Review Editors, Edward H. Friedman, 1984-86 (Arizona State University and Indiana University) and Janet Pérez, 1986-92 (Texas Tech University), and Ronald R. Young, Hispania’s Advertising Manager, 1984-1992 (San Diego State University).

And finally, I thank the AATSP for giving me the opportunity to serve as Editor, and the readers of Hispania for receiving with enthusiasm the innovations I have tried to bring to the journal.

Hispania apologizes sincerely to the authors of an article in the September 1992 issue in the section Pedagogy: Colleges and Universities, Judith Walker de Félix and Sylvia Cavazos Peña, «Return Home: The Effects of Study in Mexico on Bilingual Teachers» (75.3: 743-50). Inadvertently, the second of the authors’ two tables was omitted from the published final version. We include the missing Table 2 at the conclusion of the Pedagogy: Colleges and Universities Section of this issue.

The President’s Corner

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. It is wonderful to be able to welcome so many of you, friends and colleagues, in this magnificent setting of beauty, bounty, and beaches -a perfect spot to get reacquainted, to develop new friendships, and to refresh and reaffirm our interest in and devotion to our beloved AATSP. It is my own interest and devotion which guide and compel my remarks this evening after more than thirty years as a language teacher, a lifetime as a multilingual person, and over a quarter of a century as a member of AATSP.

The human experience provides constant surprises. In the April issue of Foreign Language Annals, William Hopkins tells of moving from his boyhood in Storm Lake, Iowa (population 8,000), to his position as interpreter for the American ambassador to Russia, speaking to virtually the entire Russian nation on T.V. following the recent attempted coup against Gorbachev. It seems Mr. Hopkins majored in Russian thirty years ago.

Few of us can claim such an obviously earth-shaking result from a career in foreign languages, but few of us are without our own stories of opportunity, adventure, and accomplishment which resulted from the «happy circumstance» of having escaped the curse of monolingualism. I stand before you now remembering what it felt like to be an undergraduate from Paraguay arriving in Miami for the first time and riding a Greyhound bus to the University of Wyoming. Much of what has happened to me since that interminable trip resulted from my growing up speaking Spanish, French, and Italian at home, and all of it, of course, has been possible only because slowly and painfully I finally managed to persuade listeners that I was indeed speaking the language in which I address you this evening.

And lest you think it too unusual that a woman from a little-known spot on the Great Plains should rise to address a gathering of distinguished teachers and scholars in another country, I want to mention what we have come to call «The Omaha Connection»: in the last four years our city has provided four national presidents of professional education associations -all women. It is the year of the woman after all. Two of them (Ali Moeller and Liz Hoffman) have headed the American Association of Teachers of German, and Lynda Pratt was recently elected to head the American Association of University Professors. We all know each other and are good friends, by the way. Who knows, someday the women of Omaha may be called upon to confirm or deny their designs on the White House.

As Hopkins points out, however, the promise of job opportunities or great adventures cannot be the basis for changing how America thinks about foreign language five hundred years after the voyage of Columbus. That task, including the role of the AATSP, must grow from a far more sophisticated and complex argument. Leading America to «rediscover» foreign languages is the most difficult and important responsibility we share at present, and we must devote this decade to learning how to respond to that challenge.

The Mexican writer Laura Esquivel, in her recent Como agua para chocolate, tells her protagonist’s story through a series of recipes. I don’t cook or speak well enough to do that tonight, but I do want to invite your attention to a list of ingredients which I think the AATSP ought to consider. Perhaps if we blend and cook them a fuego lento for a while we can come up with a prize-winning dish.

One great problem for foreign language instruction in America is not geographic isolation, benighted curricula, or the dominance of English as an international language, it is the memories and resultant attitudes of parents. American students are often raised by people with two years of high-school French behind them which have resulted at best in an occasional muttering of the inevitable «Voulez-vous couchez avec moi?» When we talk of changing the way foreign languages are valued in America, we have to find better ways to reach parents, who transmit values. Programs aimed at parents and their influence are rare and deserve more attention and resources. For example, elementary schools need to meet with parents long before decisions about foreign language study are to be made, and even post-secondary orientation programs for parents need to emphasize the value of foreign languages.

A related problem is our dilemma over what can be accomplished in the usual required period of foreign language study at any educational level. It is the limitations of such programs, even when exemplary, which produce many of the negative parental and societal attitudes we have to contend with 20 years later. Somehow we must either accomplish more, and produce more satisfied veterans, or we must find better ways to explain the value of what we do now, or we must do something different. What we can not afford, however, is just more of the same. To rediscover foreign languages, the nation must reinvent

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how and why it studies them.

Ideally, everyone needs competence in at least one foreign language packaged and waiting in the wings, and no one can tell ahead of time when the need for it will arise or for whom. Indeed, the European Community has set a goal that all their students will command two foreign languages by the year 2000. There is no good argument that command of foreign language is properly only an elitist concern. If we are to take a voyage of rediscovery, we must seek ways to make foreign language competency a common possession rather than an unusual one.

We also need to augment tremendously our emphasis on study abroad to combat our geographic and linguistic isolation. From my university we send some 25 to 30 students and established teachers to Mexico for a month each summer, and the progress they make is astounding. We serve only a tiny portion of the people who need the experience, however, and then only in Spanish and only in Mexico. Financial and temporal constraints keep most Americans at home. Additional resources just must be found, and greater value must be assigned to study, not merely travel abroad. We need to prepare ourselves to admit and argue better that classroom work alone has serious limitations and that other experiences are essential. If the football team needs a playing field, the chemistry class a laboratory, and the English class a library, we must insist that foreign language students need time abroad. The best place to rediscover a foreign language is on its own home ground.

Teacher training and competence need to be addressed as well. We must find better ways to persuade certification authorities, college faculties, school administrators, and parents to provide the resources and regulations necessary to ensure that language teachers are fully competent and confortable in their foreign language. I must admit after three decades in the field that I’m far less concerned about this year’s methodology than I am about last year’s semester in Braunschweig. One must know how to teach a foreign language, and mere knowledge of the language is never enough, but neither is mere knowledge of a methods textbook combined with halting syntax, narrow vocabulary, excruciating pronunciation, and an «isn’t it quaint» approach to the culture. Whatever it takes to be a good foreign language teacher, one just must know the subject itself well. And our society, influenced by our AATSP organization, just must find better ways to provide the resources and environment for that to happen.

In this rediscovery of foreign languages project, however, the overriding, most important goal must be changing the American public’s understanding of the essential nature for our national future of widespread foreign language competence. It is not a frill which can be canceled in every budget crisis. It is a skill without which we cannot compete well in the next century. It is not possible to sell soap abroad in English when the competition speaks the language and understands the culture of the customer. We must have an adequate supply, indeed an overabundance of competent, experienced speakers of a great many of the world’s languages. It is not enough to understand the world only in terms of what others tell us of themselves in our language. We must know their world as they do.

And finally, it is not enough to focus on the pragmatic goal of two years of Spanish, French, or German for everyone. What we do in the AATSP for the study of Spanish and Portuguese must be multiplied a hundredfold in the near future, and established organizations such as ours must realize an overall responsibility for foreign language instruction which embraces active support for the study of many other languages to the point of useful competence. We must help wherever we can.

My stew pot could do with many more ingredients I haven’t time to mention here, and if I’ve overlooked one of your favorites, I apologize. With your indulgence, however, I would also like to spend a few minutes this evening on the internal affairs of our association, for our effectiveness at pursuing the goals I’ve already discussed depends in large measure on how well we keep our own house in order and operating at peak efficiency.

For example, we need to consider seriously a two-year presidency for our organization. It takes time for a new president, no matter how experienced she or he may be, to learn the job and become maximally effective. Nothing demonstrates this better than the understanding some of you have that the president is a mere figurehead -decorative but irrelevant. To the extent that perception may have been accurate at times in the past, I assure you we do not need such decoration. What we do need is for the membership to be represented as effectively as possible by their elected representatives. What we do need is for the staff of the association to be maximally responsive to the needs and views of the membership, guided by their elected representatives.

Although my colleagues on this year’s Executive Council are not of one mind on this point, I remain convinced that one year is not long enough for the president to provide the depth of leadership our association requires. The American Association of Teachers of German has a two-year presidency, and the American Association of Teachers of French has just gone to a three-year term. We should follow suit. The rank and file members of the AATSP pay the dues, cast the votes, and are our raison d’être. I urge you in the strongest terms to support proposals which would enhance the control of the membership over their own organization, but particularly one which would extend the presidential term.

I also want to encourage increasing the visibility of the AATSP throughout the year. As I have suggested recently in Enlace, we need to consider establishing regional AATSP conferences, each one meeting perhaps every two or three years and staggered with regard to the others. The northeastern AATSP conference, of course, is already in place. The value

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and popularity of regional conferences not devoted to particular languages is well established. We need to provide similar opportunities focused on Spanish and Portuguese. Many of our members who cannot regularly attend our national meetings would find regional ones accessible to them.

Again following the lead of other organizations, I would like to see us establish a grants committee to seek and then allocate funds to teachers of Spanish and Portuguese in our state chapters.

Further, I recommend we establish more awards for our members, named after some of our illustrious predecessors. We need to focus more effectively on recognition of outstanding accomplishments by our colleagues.

I also hope we will move toward greater attendance at our annual conferences through the selection of varied and frequent overseas sites. Last month’s AATG in Baden-Baden, for example, attracted an unprecedented 600 members.

Finally, I want to recommend we establish an additional annual meeting for the Executive Council. At present, too much business is conducted in too little time, and the influence and contributions of the council are thus sometimes unacceptably diminished.

My focus this evening has been rather speculative -on a possible rediscovery that is yet to come. I cannot conclude, however, without reference to past accomplishments and future promise. Without meaning to neglect any of the fine colleagues whose work makes our association possible, I must note that Jim Chatham is soon to finish his nine-year tenure as executive director. His successor, Lynn Sandstedt, brings a wealth of talent and experience to the position. Further, our major voice, Hispania, is to lose the good offices of Ted Sackett, its editor for many fine years of growth and refinement. In his place we are fortunate to have the services of a wonderfully accomplished scholar and editor, Estelle Irizarry. I know that you will all join me in thanking Jim and Ted for the many years of splendid service and in welcoming Lynn and Estelle to their new positions.

It has been the greatest pleasure and honor to serve as your president. I look out over the audience tonight and see many of the friends and colleagues who have enriched my life and work, and I am reminded of the many others who weren’t able to join us on these shores this year. From my first foreign language conference as a new, 24-year-old Ohio high-school teacher until tonight, the company of warm-hearted and skilled professionals such as you has given me confidence and helped to keep me going. I thank you for that, and I wish you all the very best in the years to come. And I know that the men who have accompanied me to Cancún -my husband, Gordon Mundell, and my son, Paul García, join me in thanking you for your many kindnesses to us in recent days.

Un millón de gracias a todos ustedes, mis queridos compañeros y amigos, y ¡que Dios los bendiga!

¡Nos veremos en Phoenix el año que viene!

Elvira García
University of Nebraska-Omaha

Professional News

Translators and Their Image. Translators have existed probably since the beginning of human speech. But let us go back only to recorded times, to Greece and Rome where the business of translating and interpreting was handled by slaves. In the Middle Ages monks sat closeted in their cells to translate for the greater glory of God. The vast empires of Spain and later of Britain picked their translators from the people they had subjugated.

No wonder that -to this day- the image of a translator is not glamorous. When almost every other workforce has created a firm and protected base from which to operate, skilled translators do not even have a professional status in this country. Government departments rank them among the clerical staff. And yet, this modern world of ours would fall to pieces if it were not for the emending and binding and mediating skills of translators. They touch every citizen’s life. What we buy or want to sell, what we hear on the air or read in the paper, the things we believe in and those we fear, our science and technology -they all come to us extracted from a din of foreign voices by the interpretive skill of experienced translators.

Despite all this, the perception lingers that translators are non-persons, shadows hovering around ‘important’ people at press interviews and other republic functions. They are considered ‘useful’ at best but have no claim to recognition and respect.

This must be changed! Individually and as groups we must find the will to change it and direct our strategy and our resources toward this end. ATA’s (American Translators Association) recent move to Washington, D.C. is a step in the right direction. We need representatives who highlight our professional importance in the new global economy we hear so much about. Yes, those elected ATA policy makers and all ATA chapters -ours above all, young, strong, and sempervivens- should make this a priority commitment.

Edith Fried
The ATA Chronicle
July 1992

The Process of Translation. Why has the art of translating poetry eclipsed that of prose in the history of translation studies? The answer seems simple: We have commonly believed that the poetry translator must be a poet, and therefore that his technique or philosophy deserves our inquiry, but any somewhat bilingual individual with dictionary in hand can translate a prose text. Again, the common belief is that novels are easier to translate than poetry. The traditional virtue of translators, particularly prose translators, has been their invisibility as humble scribes, scribbling transparent texts in the cellar of the castle of Literature.

The formal and linguistic complexities of twentieth-century fiction obviously belie these feudal notions. Exposing the poetics of prose translation and the prose translator’s role as creative writer and literary critic can provide invaluable insights, for translation is the most concrete form of the interpretive act performed by all readers, scholars, and teachers of foreign literatures. Translations and the practice of translating, says Gideon Toury are observational facts; the description of these facts is not only essential but prior to any possible theory. Self-referential inquisitions by prose translators should provide useful models for translation studies as well as models of self-questioning for all interpreters.

Umberto Eco speaks of telling the process of writing as an activity apart from the writing itself:

With this excusatio propter infirmitatem in mind, I would like to explain briefly what motivated me to write a book about translation.

The project began as a collection of the various notes, articles, and essays I had written from 1971 to 1984. My first attempt to record the challenging process of my first two translations, Three trapped Tigers and Betrayed by Rita Hayworth, was guilessly called ‘Notes on Translation’. What struck me almost immediately about these early translation experiences was how much richer the process was than the final product. Writing about translation made me

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even more keenly aware that the reader could gain a more intimate knowledge of the literary work, and of the languages and cultures involved in the dialogue between original and translation, if only he or she knew how translation decisions were made, and how possible choices were finally set aside for what were considered better solutions.

These early translations were also close collaborations, or ‘closelaborations’, a neologism coined by Guillermo Cabrera Infante. As I worked with him, and later with Manuel Puig, I observed that the dilemma of one word versus another was not a problem unique to translation. The original writer constantly chooses words and phrases, compelled by intuitions and reasons that often have more to do with language than with his own intentions; as the composer Maurice Ravel once responded to a eulogizing critic, creativity is not a matter of inspiration but of choices, of decision-making. The original is one of many possible versions. When jotting down these first notes, I realized that not only did the reader ‘lose’ the constant dilemmas and fugitive process of the translation but also my ongoing dialogue with the authors. Since their letters reveal tantalizing views of the relationship between original and translation -both as product and process- I have translated excerpts that will serve as primary material in my presentations of translation strategies.

Other reasons for writing such a study took shape as I made the transition from free-lance translator to university professor. The academic community is still under the sway of the positivist prejudice against translation as an unimaginative and unscholarly activity, and as Carol Maier observes, it still sees translation as «a task that does not occur in the realms of thought but between the pages of a dictionary» (25). Especially the translation for contemporary fiction situates me in a sphere that is too ‘literary’ in the eyes of more traditional colleagues. The translation of poetry, both classical and modern, and of classical drama, have been marginal scholarly concerns, but does contemporary fiction merit the same respect? So far only James Joyce, the genius of modernism: Finnegans Wake, paradigm of the modern, provides in fiction what Pound forged in poetry, a theoretical though controversial place for translation as interpretation and creation.

But what can we learn from the translation of contemporary fiction-most of it not yet canonized-and particularly of works from marginal countries such as Cuba and Argentina? Much of contemporary Latin American literature, beginning perhaps with the matter fabulist Jorge Luis Borges, falls under the rubric of ‘postmodernism’, a tendency that reflects (for some) exhaustion; John Barth describes Borges’s originality and obsessive, implicit theme as the «difficulty, perhaps unnecessity of writing original works» (22). Postmodern writers such as those I’ve translated and am writing about -Cabrera Infante, Puig, Severo Sarduy- have attempted to revitalize literature by turning to popular forms. Is such writing worthy of translation, and do the problems involved in translating it deserve out attention? I attempted here to address and to redress those questions. In a world preoccupied more with present than past, English speakers today need to know the concerns expressed in other languages; North American readers need to hear the voices of that ‘other’ America alienated from the United States by a torturous political history. But these readers also need to understand how Latin American writing is transmitted to them, and how differences and similarities between cultures and language affect what is finally transmitted. Knowing the other and how we receive or hear the other is a fundamental step toward knowing ourselves.

Suzanne Jill Levine
The Subversive Scribe
xii-xv

Foreign Languages Across the Curriculum. Our foreign language requirements rest on the premise that as students acquire foreign language competence they also acquire a broad awareness of foreign cultures and a deeper understanding of language as a human phenomenon. Yet, because of the typical discontinuity between language programs and the rest of the curriculum, students often tend to view the foreign language requirement as just one more obstacle they must surmount on the path to graduation. The study of languages is seen solely as the acquisition of language skills divorced from any meaningful connection to (the study of) other disciplines, such as history, philosophy, political science, sociology, and art history. Students generally remain unaware of how the knowledge of a second language can enhance understanding of subject matter in practically all fields of study.

Furthermore, if language study is divorced from the heart of the undergraduate enterprise, language use is even more isolated. On many campuses, foreign language is studied and used only in the foreign language building or at special foreign language department events. Students have little or no opportunity to observe faculty in the humanities, the sciences, and the fine arts using a language other than English to communicate with colleagues for purposes of research or casual exchange. By the same token, due to narrowly drawn divisional and departmental lines, these same students are prevented by the curriculum itself as well as by major and other requirements from bringing together their language study and their study of other disciplines.

St. Olaf College, a private, church-related liberal arts college located in Northfield, Minnesota, is attempting to address the problem of language/content integration via a two-year project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and a these-year project supported by the Fund for the

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Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE).

The St. Olaf projects have three objectives. The first is to identify a core group of faculty across the curriculum who have advanced foreign language proficiency and who are willing to incorporate foreign language texts into their courses. The second objective is to create appropriate foreign language materials for use in a group of specially adapted courses. The third objective, and perhaps our principal concern, is to encourage students to continue second-language study and use beyond the three-semester requirement by offering them the opportunity to combine advanced language work with disciplinary study, typically carried out in the context of institution-wide general education and distribution requirements, and/or requirements for a major.

The participating faculty members have all had significant international experience. Language faculty have demonstrated their commitment to language teaching and have been involved in teaching and doing research about the culture and history of their areas; non-foreign language discipline specialists have studied and conducted research in their language(s) of competence and have interest and expertise in cross-cultural analysis and inter-disciplinary work. Both groups are committed to integrating language study and disciplinary work in order to broaden and deepen students’ understanding of particular disciplines.

Critical to the success of our projects is the involvement and support of non-foreign language faculty, for it is obvious that student attitudes and behavior will not change unless faculty members demonstrate their commitment to changing the status quo. In a curriculum context, this means faculty working to overcome the perceived low status of second language study and the typical absence of connection between disciplinary study and second language study. In a student context, faculty must encourage student advisees and other students with whom they have contact to do more than simply «get through» the second language requirement as quickly as possible. Also, students need to see non-foreign language faculty in their major departments as positive role models with respect to second language proficiency and use. Thus a major thrust of both projects is faculty development, for which grant funds provide released time, overload stipends, and summer salaries for course preparation and improvement of second language skills.

Student language competencies also are enhanced as students read, analyze, interpret, and discuss foreign language materials pertinent to a particular discipline. Students who have limited their language study to the requirement are encouraged to continue further by the opportunity to apply their foreign language proficiency to the subjects of interest to them, albeit subjects rarely included within the curriculum of most foreign language department.

In terms of the faculty as a whole, the AFLC program has generated more discussion about foreign language competence and use than has occurred on the campus for many years. The fact that many faculty -and not simply language faculty- are talking about languages and the degree to which they are currently used on campus by both faculty and students is a positive development. In the fall of 1990, over a dozen non-foreign language faculty were enrolled in language courses, with the intent of using their language in a variety of contexts including, in some cases the AFLC program. These developments constitute progress toward one of the major goals of the applied foreign language projects, namely, extending foreign language study and use across the campus.

As for student response, the goal of averaging seven to ten students per AFLC course has been met. All indications are that this enrollment pattern will continue. For example, nineteen students are enrolled for a three-course interdisciplinary immersion seminar offered in the fall of 1991 under the auspices of the FIPSE grant.

Student evaluations confirm student recognition of the value of the program. They particularly appreciated the opportunity to discuss ideas and issues of substance made possible by the weekly AFLC discussion session. This opportunity enabled a number of students to contribute in a substantial way to full-class discussions involving both AFLC students and students enrolled in the English-language track. AFLC students were able to contribute insights they might not have had in the absence of the weekly foreign language discussion sessions.

We envision a future in which the academic use of languages is seen as an integral part of the undergraduate curriculum of most colleges and universities -and we and others are beginning to make that vision a reality.

Wendy Allen, Keith Anderson, León Narváez
St. Olaf College
Foreign Languages Annals
25.1 (1992)

Binghamton’s Languages Across the Curriculum. Binghamton’s «Languages Across the Curriculum» (LxC) program utilizes graduate international students as Languages Resource Specialists (LRSs) to devise alternative class assignments using foreign language materials in undergraduate courses that do not traditionally use such materials. Graduate international students who are proficient in languages known by undergraduates and who possess appropriate disciplinary background enlist as FRSs for LxC-targeted undergraduate courses. In return for payment from the LxC program, and under the supervision of LxC program staff, LRSs prepare class assignments utilizing accessible non-English materials (Newspaper items, magazine features, journal articles, book chapters, etc.)

As requested by course faculty, LRSs perform a variety of additional tasks. They prepare ancillary

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aids (glossaries, commentaries, etc.) to accompany the foreign-language material to make it intelligible to students armed with nothing more than a dictionary. They also assist in implementing assignments by assuming such roles as discussion leader, tutor, or grader. This as the medium of communication, depending on the abilities of the LxC-participating students. Or it means meeting one-on-one with LxC participants to help them understand the assigned material, or readings and commenting on drafts of written assignments based on that material. Finally, some LRSs speak to the class as a whole about topic-specific non-English linguistic patterns and non-American cultural contexts.

Students in LxC-supported courses choose to perform LRS-devised assignments instead of assignments using English materials on the basis of their interest and their performance on a simple self-graded reading comprehension test in the foreign language. Faculty normalize the workload of LxC-participating students in various ways, including have one LxC assignment substitute for two non-LxC assignments or making them significantly shorter. Info: P.O. Box 6000, Binghamton, New York 13902-6000.

CLCFLT Elects New Officers. The new officers for the Colorado Congress of Foreign Language Teachers (CCFLT) for the 1992-1993 year are as follows: President, Dan Roque, Denver; president-elect, Susan Gross, Colorado Springs, and Executive Secretary, Michael Nettleton, Boulder. Notice the conference dates under «Forthcoming Events».

Festival Internacional de Houston. Bajo el lema «¡Viva España! -un saludo a España y al Nuevo Mundo», el Vigésimo-primer Festival Internacional de Houston inauguró el 23 de abril de 1992 el evento más grande, fuera de España, del Quinto Centenario. Durante diez días de festividades, muchas personas de todo el área del Golfo de México y de otros lugares disfrutaron de toda clase de espectáculos y conciertos. Entre los actos culturales sobresalieron los siguientes: El drama The Lorca Play, escrito y dirigido por Edward Albee, quien apareció en el Wortham Theater de la universidad de Houston; Paco de Lucía, el maestro de la guitarra clásica flamenca; la Colla Vella dels Xiquets de Valls, un grupo de 180 catalanes que crearon una torre humana de nueve pisos de altura; Tito Puente, el «Rey del mambo», y «Los Lobos». También acudieron de la vecina Luisiana músicos como Clifton Chenier, Jr., y Wayne Toups con su multiétnica música acadiana (Cajun) y zydeco («des haricots»).

Durante los días y noches de jolgorio el centro de Houston se convirtió en una gigantesca fiesta donde además de espectáculos, se gozaba de las artes culinarias de los distintos grupos étnicos. Absolutamente todos los espectáculos fueron gratis, siendo subvencionados por corporaciones norteamericanas con sedes en Houston y por agencias gubernamentales de España y Estados Unidos.

David Ross Gerling
Sam Houston State University

Oberhelman Honored Again. Texas Tech University classical and romance languages Professor Harley D. Oberhelman was named one of the two Paul Whifield Horn Professors (March 27) at a formal meeting of the Texas Tech Board of Regents. The designation, established in 1966 to recognize scholarly achievements and outstanding service to Texas Tech, is the highest honor granted to faculty members at the university.

Oberhelman is recognized as an expert on modern and contemporary Spanish American literature including the works of Colombian Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez. Oberhelman received two Fulbright travel grants to Colombia to Sudy García Márquez, the subject of his most recent book, Gabriel García Márquez: A Study of the Short Fiction. He also received a Fulbright grant to lecture on English as a foreign language at the National University of Tucumán in Argentina.

The author of more than 50 academic publications, 20 book reviews and five books, Oberhelman has received the Texas Tech Honors Program Meritorious Faculty Award, the Outstanding Educator of America Award, the Piper Foundation Professorship and the Standard Oil Foundation Distinguished Teaching Award.

Wilson Receives Award. Donna M. Wilson (nee Palmer), professor of Spanish and Chairperson of Foreign Languages, Highline College, Des Moines, Washington, was recognized on June 1 as the College’s first Honored Faculty Scholar. Nominated by her colleagues, Wilson’s selection for this prestigious award adds to a list of distinguished accomplishments by this recognized scholar.

Prof. Wilson also has been recipient of several teaching awards. As a member of local, regional and national foreign language professional organizations, Wilson actively contributes to her profession through publishing and conducts workshops.

SCOLAS Establishes Award for Students. The Southwest Council of Latin American Studies (SCOLAS) offers an annual scholarship to a student pursuing a degree in any area of Latin American studies. The award alternates each year between an undergraduate and a graduate student; for 1993, the first year of operation, the award will be given to a graduate student. Only a member of SCOLAS, who is also a faculty member of an accredited regional college or university, may nominate a student. The deadline for receiving applications is Feb. 1; the first award will be for the amount of $600. Info: Bertie Acker, 1705 Briardale Ct., Arlington, TX 76013.

Letras de oro. Letras de Oro is a nationwide competition for excellence in writing in Spanish in the United States. Annual prizes are awarded in the categories -novel, short story, essay, poetry and theatre. Leading Spanish and Latin American authors have been present for the award ceremony and to lecture on their own works. Among them have been Carlos Fuentes, Octavio Paz, Mario Vargas Llosa, Camilo José Cela and Guillermo Cabrera Infante.

Bases:

1. Participación: Residentes (de cualquier nacionalidad) en los Estados Unidos.

2. Géneros: Novela, cuento, teatro, poesía y ensayo/ crítica literaria.

3. Premios. $2,500 dólares en efectivo; un diploma de honor; y un viaje a España.

4. Fecha de presentación. El 12 de octubre de 1992, Día de la Hispanidad, es la fecha límite para someter manuscritos.

5. Anuncio de premios: Los premios se otorgan durante una ceremonia que tiene lugar en el mes de marzo de 1993.

Info: Letras de Oro, University of Miami, 1531 Brescia Ave., P.O. Box 24123, Coral Gables, FL 33124 (305) 284-3266; Fax: (305) 284-4406.

MLA Now Offers Seven Book Prizes. The Modern Language Association now offers seven book prizes:

1. 1991 James Russell Lowell Prize

Definition: For an outstanding literary or linguistic study, a critical edition of an important work, or a critical biography. Studies dealing with literary theory, media, cultural history, and interdisciplinary topics are eligible; books that are primarily translations are not. Awarded annually; deadline: 1 March 1993.

2. 1991 MLA Prize for Independent Scholars

Definition: For distinguished published research in the fields of English and other modern languages and literatures.

3. 1991 Katherine Singer Kovacs Prize

Definition: For the best book published in English in the field of Latin American and Spanish literature and cultures. Awarded annually; deadline: 1 May 1993.

4. 1990-91 Howard R. Marraro Prize

Definition: For an outstanding scholarly study of book or essay length on any phase of Italian literature or comparative literature involving Italian. Awarded biennially; next deadline: 1 May 1993.

5. 1991-92 Morton N. Cohen Award

Definition: For a distinguished edition of letters. Awarded biennially; next deadline: 1 May 1993

6. 1991 Kenneth W., Mildenberger Prize

Definition: For an outstanding research publication (book or article) in the field of teaching foreign languages and literatures. Awarded annually; deadline: 1 May 1993.

7. 1991 Mina P. Shaughnessy Prize

Definition: For an outstanding research publication (book or article) in the field of teaching English language and literature. Awarded annually; deadline: 1 May 1993.

Romance Monographs. On January 1, 1992 the Department of Foreign Languages of the University of Mississippi acquired the distinguished book series Romance Monographs and will continue to pursue its original goals in the field of academic publishing.

Romance Monographs was founded in 1971 by Professor Urban Tigner Holmes of the University of North Carolina as a private corporation devoted to scholarly publishing in the various romance languages and literatures. Professor Holmes created the series to counter the growing trend among university presses toward selection of manuscripts based on sales potential rather than quality of scholarship or contribution to the discipline. The format of the University of North Carolina Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures series served as a model for this new publishing venture.

The first title in the series appeared in 1972. During its twenty years of existence Romance Monographs has issued a total of forty-nine volumes plus reprints of two works originally published by other presses. Although most of the volumes deal with French or Hispanic literature, studies are also available on Italian and Portuguese topics. Authors in the series include well known, established scholars in the romance languages as well as younger professors just beginning their careers. Info: Romance Monographs, Department of Modern Languages, University of Mississippi, University, MS 38677.

Melvin S. Arrington
University of Mississippi

Greenwood Press to Publish Volume on Gay Literature. Greenwood Press has contracted to assemble a volume to be entitled «Latin American Gay Literature: A Biographical and Critical Sourcebook». The volume will run to 700 pages in manuscript. Among figures to be included are individuals with a professed gay identity, such that it would be productive to consider their total oeuvre from such a perspective (e.g. Manuel Puig); writers who have published on gay themes, either with negative images (José Donoso, Adolfo Caminha) or with positive images (Luis Zapata, Gustavo Álvarez, Gardeazábal) -one realizes that «positive» and «negative» here are problematical formulations; and, finally, individuals who, although not dealing with a gay topic or professing a gay identity, have authored works in which something like a gay sensibility can be identified, no matter how problematically. (One could suggest René Marqués in this regard, as well as Jorge Luis Borges and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz). An intensely polemical reaction might well attend to inclusions in the third category, but this is precisely what is hoped will make this volume a provocative contribution to

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Hispanic studies. Scholars wishing to contribute to this project should request further details from David William Foster, Department of Foreign Languages, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-0202. Telephone: (602) 965-3752; fax (602) 965-0135; electronic mail address ATDWF@ASUACAD.

LASA Forum
Summer 1992

Basque Ph.D. and Minor. The Basque Studies Program offers opportunities at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. On the graduate level, those interested in pursuing research in the area of Basque Studies may complete a Ph.D. in Basque Studies with an emphasis on history, anthropology, linguistics or literature by conferring with a mentor and pursuing their Ph.D. through a tutorial program.

Candidates for the Ph.D. tutorial must have a Master’s Degree in order to apply and must be highly self-motivated because of the tutorial nature of the program. Research assistanships may also be available.

Undergraduates at the University of Nevada, Reno may minor in Basque studies. Those students attending the University Abroad Consortium will be able to fulfill many of the requirements for a minor in one year. Other students may need more time. Info: Basque Studies Program, University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89557.

Newsletter on Mexico. «Mexican Meanderings: A Newsletter of Explorations in an Enchanted Land» is published six times a year and has travel and cultural information on Mexico. Info: «Mexican Meanderings», P.O. Box 33057, Austin, TX 78764.

Colonial Latin America in Newsletter. «Colegios: The International Newsletter on the History of Ideas in Colonial Latin America» is published biannually by Our Lady of the Lake University of San Antonio. Info: «Colegios», c/o Jeffrey Coombs, OLLU, 411 S.W. 24th Street, San Antonio, TX 78207-4689.

Newsletter from the University of Illinois. The Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in conjunction with other area centers at the university produces a quarterly newsletter called «Update». The three latest issues are devoted to the following topics: Education in Latin America, Medicine in Latin America, and Teaching Latin American Studies. «Update» is available free of charge. Info: Center for Latin American Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaigne, Room 250, 1208 W. California Street, Urbana, IL 61801.

International Language Testing Association Formed. In March 1992, a group of testing professionals met in Princeton NJ to discuss the formation of an international association for individuals interested in language testing. A steering committee was elected to draft a constitution. Approximately one year later in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, a public meeting was held to discuss and vote on the proposed constitution. The constitution was approved and the International Language Testing Association (ILTA) was created.

ILTA’s purpose is to promote the improvement of language testing throughout the world. ILTA’s interests will be independent of those of any other organization. To this end, ILTA plans to work with other organizations involved in language education or educational measurement to see that language testing plays an appropriate role in their conferences and deliberations. Conferences and workshops for members on both practical and theoretical aspects of language testing will be sponsored or cosponsored. Info: John H.A.L. deJong, CITO, PO Box 1203, 6801 BE Ambem, The Netherlands.

Multicultural Research Symposium, 6-9 Jan., Honolulu. Info: Raymond Moody, Dept. of European Languages, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI 96822; (808) 956-8796.

Australian Council of TESOL Associations, 17-21 Jan. Sydney. Info: Patricia Tart, Australian Convention and Travel Services, GPO Box 2200, Canberra, ACT Australia 2601; 06-2573299; fax 062573256.

Southern Conference on Language Teaching with Foreign Language Association of Georgia, 11-13 Feb., Atlanta. Info: Rosalie Cheatham, Foreign Languages, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, AR 72204.

Association of Academic Programs in Latin America and the Caribbean (AAPLAC), 17-19 Feb., Rockford, Illinois. Info: Lorraine Vanden Baard, Central College, Pella, Ia. 50219; (800) 831-3629.

Illinois Joint Foreign Language Conference, 19-20 Feb., Bloomington. Info: Susan Leibowitz, Glenbrook South High School, Glenview, IL 60025; (312) 549-7517.

National Association for Bilingual Education, 23-27 Feb. Houston. Info: NABE, Union Center Plaza, 810 First St. NE., Washington, DC 20002-4205; (202) 898-1829; fax (202) 289-8173.

Colorado Congress of Foreign Language Teachers (CCFLT), Colorado Springs, CO, 25-27 Feb. Info: Patrick A. Sprock, 4104 21 st Street Road, Greeley, CO 80634.

21st Annual Twentieth-Century Literature Conference, 25-27 Feb., University of Louisville. Info: Harriette Seiler, Department of Languages, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292, (502) 588-6686.

Computer Assisted Learning and Instructional Consortium, 8-14 March, Williamsburg. Info: CALICO, 014 Language Building, Duke Univ., Durham, NC 27706; (919) 489-5949.

2nd Biennial Conference on Culture, Society and Change in the Americas, 10-14 March, Mérida, Venezuela. Info: Leslie Oja, Division of Conferences & Institutes, University of South Florida, 4202 E. Fowler Ave., EXS 018, Tampa, FL 33620-8700; (813) 974-2403; fax (813) 974-5421.

Ohio Foreign Language Association, 11-13 March, Toledo. Info: OFLA, Box 1671, Columbus, OH 43216-1671.

British Columbia TELA, 18-20 March, Victoria. Info: Maggie Warbey, Dept. of Linguistics, University of Victoria, Box 3045, Victoria, BC V8W 4P4, Canada; (604) 721-7420.

Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign languages, 25-28 March, Des Moines. Info: Jody Thrush, Madison Area Technical College, 3550 Anderson Ave., Madison, WI 5307; (608) 246-6573.

Southwest Conference on Language Teaching with Arizona Foreign Language Association, 1-3 April, Tempe. Info: Joann K. Pompa, Mountain Pointe High School, 4201 E. Knox Road, Phoenix AZ 85044; (602) 759-8449 ext. 3036.

Northern New England TESOL, 3 April, Portland. Info: Don Bouchard, University of Southern Maine, College of Education, Depart. of Literacy Education, Bailey Hall, Gortham, ME 04038; (207) 780-5069.

12th Annual EMU Conference on Languages and Communication for World Business and the Professions, 1-3 April, Eastern Michigan University. Info: EMU Conference on Languages and World Business, World College, 307 Goodison Hall, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI 48197. (313) 487-2414. Fax (313) 485-1980.

American Association for Applied Linguistics, 9-12 April, Atlanta. Info: AAAL, Box 24083, Oklahoma City, OK 73124.

Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, 13-17 April, Atlanta. Info: TESOL, 1600 Cameron St., Suite 300, Alexandria, VA 22314; (703) 836-0774; fax (703) 836-7864.

Renaissance Society of America with Central Renaissance Conference, 15-17 April, Kansas City. Info: Burton Dunbar, Office of Academic Affairs, Univ. of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, MO 64110; (816) 326-2531.

Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages,15-18 April, New York. Info: Northeast Conference, 200 Twin Oaks Terrace, Ste. 16, So. Burlington, VT 05403; (802) 863-9939.

Pacitic Northwest Council on Foreign Languages, 6-8 May, Eugene. Info: Ray Verzasconi, Foreign Languages and Literatures, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331-4603; (503) 7372146; e-mail verzascr@ccmail.orst.edu.

13th Annual Cincinnati Conference on Romance Languages and Literatures, 13-15 May, University of Cincinnati. Info: Luis Alvarado/Susan Whittle, Conference Chairs, Dept. of Romance Languages and Literatures, Univ. of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 4 5221-0377.

Seminar for the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials, (SALALM XXXVIII) Guadalajara, 15-20 May. Info: SALALM Secretariat, General Library, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131-1466.

International Association for Learning Laboratories, 2-5 June, Lawrence. Info: John Huy, Academic Resource Center, 4069 Wescoe Hall, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 44065-2167.

International Conference on Library Collection Development for Latin American Studies, 217 June. Pittsburgh, PA, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Buenos Aires, Argentina. Info: Richard Krzys, School of Library and Information Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260. (412) 624-9435. Fax: (412) 624-5231.

International Association of Applied Linguistics, 8-12 August, Amsterdam. Info: Johan Matter, Vrije Universiteit, Faculteit der Letteren, Postbus 7161, NL-1007 MC Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Computer Assisted Learning and Instructional Consortium,12-14 Aug., Maastricht. Info: CALICO, 014 Language Building, Duke Univ., Durham, NC 27706; 919/489-5949.

Illinois Joint Foreign Language Conference, 21-24 Oct., Peoria. Info: Susan Leibowitz, Glenbrook South High School, Glenview, IL 60025; (312) 549-7517.

Foreign Language Association of North Carolina, 28-30 Oct., Greensboro. Info: Wayne Figart, 204 N. 16th St., Wilmington, NC 28401; (919) 736-

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4009.

Massachusetts Foreign Language Association, 29-30 Oct., Sturbridge. Info: Georg Steinmeyer, Black Mt. Rd. RFD #1, Box 549, Brattleboro, VT 05301; fax (802) 257-1855.

Wisconsin Association of Foreign Language Teachers, 5-6 Nov., Appleton. Info: William W. Kean, Suring Public Schools, PO Box 158, Suring, WI 54174.

Northern New England TESOL, 13 Nov., Manchester. Info: Don Bouchard, University of Southern Maine, College of Education, Depart. of Literacy Education, Bailey Hall, Gorham, ME 04038; (207) 780-5069.

American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages with American Association of Teachers of German, 20-22 Nov., San Antonio. Info: ACTFL, 6 Executive Plaza, Yonkers, NY 10701-6801; (914) 963-8830; fax (914) 963-1275.

Modern Language Association of America, 2730 Dec., Toronto. Info: Modern Language Association of America, 10 Astor Place, New York, NY 10003-6981.

Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, 28 Feb. -5 March, Baltimore. Info: TESOL, 1600 Cameron St., Suite 300, Alexandria, VA 22314-2751; (703) 836-0774; fax (703) 836-7864.

Fédération Internationale des Professeurs de Langues Vivantes, 28 March-1 April, Hamburg. FIPLV Head Office, Seestrasse 247, CH-8038 Zurich, Switzerland.

Renaissance Society of America, 7-9 April, Texas. Info: Craig Kallendorf, English Department, Texas A & M University, College Station, TX 77843.

Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, 7-10 April, New York. Info: Northeast Conference, 200 Twin Oaks Terrace, Ste. 16, So. Burlington, VT 05403; (802) 863-9939.

Central Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages with Missouri Foreign Language Association, 21-24 April, Kansas City. Info: Jody Thrush, Madison Area Technical College, 3550 Anderson Ave., Madison, WI 53704; (608) 246-6573.

Pacific Northwest Council on Foreign Languages with Montana Association of Language Teachers, 12-14 May, Missoula. Info: Ray Verzasconi, Foreign Languages and Literatures, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR-97331-4603; (50# 737-2146; e-mail verzascr@ccmail.orst.edu.

48th International Congress of Americanists, 4-9 July, Sweden. Info: Sandra Jatahy Pesavento, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre-RS-Brasil, Reitoria da UFRGS, Núcleo de Documentacão e Memória Social, Av. Paulo Gama, 110-2 andar, 90049-900, Porto Alegre-RS-Brasil. Fax: 55 51 227 2295.

Foreign Language Association of North Carolina, 13-15 Oct., Greensboro. Info: Wayne Figart, 204 N. 16th St., Wilmington, NC 28401; (919) 7634009.

Wisconsin Association of Foreign Language Teachers, 4-5 Nov., Appleton. Info: William W. Kean, Suring Public Schools, Box 158, Suring, WI 54147.

Modern Language Association of America, 27-30 Dec., location to be announced. Info: Modern Language Association of America, 10 Astor Place, New York, NY 10003-6981.

Foreign Language Association of North Carolina, 12-14 Oct., Greensboro. Info: Wayne Figart, 204 N. 16th St., Wilmington, NC 28401; (919) 7634009.

American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages with American Association of Teachers of German, 18-20 Nov., Anaheim. Info: ACTFL, 6 Executive Plaza, Yonkers, NY 10701-6801; (914) 963-8830; fax (914) 963-1275.

Gerald Ervin
MLJ

John Archie Thompson Dies in Louisiana. Professor Emeritus John Archie Thompson, 86 at his death, served at Louisiana State University from 1930 to 1973. A native of Caswell County, N.C., he was a long time chairman of the Department of Foreign Languages at LSU and brought the Department to a golden age with many firsts: the first language lab in the USA, the International House in New Orleans, the National Association of Foreign Students Advisors; the South Central Modern Language Association (founder and national president), and he co-authored Speaking and Understanding Spanish, the first modern methodology text. Another book of his will soon be published.

Thompson had many distinguished positions: director of the Divison of Latin American Relations from 1942 to 1953, executive director of the Instituto Brasil-Estados Unidos in Rio de Janeiro for two years, visiting professor at the University of Havana, and

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delegate and speaker at national and international congress meetings. Listed in Who’s Who is America and other bibliographical works, he belonged to various professional and honorary organizations including the MLA, AATSP, SAMLA, Scabbard and Blade, Omicron Delta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, and Sigma Delta Pi.

A noted and sought-after lecturer, patrician among gentlemen, a role model, kind, yet a strong inspiration, he is sorely missed. Donations: John A. Thompson Scholarship Fund-Phi Sigma Iota, 5211 Essen Lane, Suite 2, Baton Rouge, La. 70809.

Marcel C. Andrade
Univ. of North Carolina

Daniel N. Cárdenas: A Reminiscence. Daniel Negrete Cárdenas was born in Williams, Arizona on July 21, 1917 and died December 25, 1991. His memory survives among us with members of the Chicago and Southern California chapters in particular. He taught at the University of Oklahoma, the University of Chicago, and California State University, Long Beach.

My first meeting with Professor Cárdenas (as I addressed him then) was at the MLA meeting of 1965. I had known of him for years and had used his Introducción a una comparación fonológica del español y del inglés several times as a text. It was important for me to make contact at that meeting, for he had agreed to teach the following summer in an NDEA Institute I was to direct at Murray State. I remember being slightly in awe prior to that first encounter, but his warmth and wit eased the situation, and we had a pleasant conversation.

Since I did not really know him, there was nevertheless concern that this well-known professor from the University of Chicago might be aloof or difficult to deal with during the Institute proper. I could not have been more wrong. His total commitment to the program -his enthusiastic participation in every activity- served as a model for the rest of us. As the senior person, and something of a father figure, he was a pillar of strength for his colleagues and for the participants. We marvelled at his energy and delighted in his sense of humor.

Although justifiably proud of his ethnic heritage, he moved easily within two cultures and two languages, without apparent tension. A veteran of WW II, he subsequently completed his M.A. and Ph.D. at Columbia as one of the last advisees of Tomás Navarro Tomás. His devotion to his mentor throughout the remainder of Navarro’s life was exceptional.

Dan Cárdenas was an indefatigable advocate of linguistic approaches to literary analysis. By means of that approach, he attempted to being together linguistics and literature, just as he strove always for harmony between his two cultures. That quest for harmony and synthesis is, to my mind, Dan’s legacy, and it lives on as an ideal among colleagues of good will everywhere.

James A. Parr
University of California, Riverside

The Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian World

How does a politically committed writer continue to work in a system that has made a significant move toward democracy? This is the dilemma facing Chilean author Ariel Dorfman. His new play, Death and the Maiden, which opened on March 17 at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre in New York (directed by Mike Nichols, and starring Glenn Close, Richard Dreyfuss, and Gene Hackman) is Dorfman’s insightful and moving answer to that dilemma. Already a hit in London, more than twenty productions worldwide are in the works. And a film version, to be directed by Roman Polanski, is also planned.

Dorfman has returned to a new Chile with a democratically-elected president, Patricio Aylwin. Does all this mean he should no longer write or turn to other non-political topics? Death and the Maiden shows that the problems have become more subtle but they’ve not gone away. Pinochet, though no longer president, still heads the military establishment in Chile. How will the new civilian government manage to function under its watchful eye? How can the victims of oppression and their former oppressors live together under the same roof? Death and the Maiden tackles these difficult questions and offers its audience insights that can undoubtedly be applied to what is taking place in other parts of the world, such as eastern Europe, South Africa, and former Soviet Union.

A diplomat’s son, Dorfman spent his first ten years in New York. His most formative years as a teenager and a university student were spent in Chile at the time when the democratically-elected socialist government of Salvador Allende came to power. Dorfman’s first essays, Cómo leer al pato Donald [How to Read Donald Duck] and later The Empire’s Old Clothes investigate the pervasive influence of political ideology in such innocent forms as children’s literature and animated cartoons. His examination of the colonial mentality of Babar is convincing and his description of the exportation of Disney to Third World countries touches a name that is sacrosanct to nearly all Americans. His first novel, Moros en la costa [Hard Rain], dealt with the political reality of Chile in the last months of Salvador Allende’s government. Forced into exile in 1973 by Pinochet, he wrote the powerful novel, Viudas [Widows], while in the Netherlands. Viudas treats the questions of «los desaparecidos», the men and women who disappeared during the military regime, never to be heard from again. La última canción de Manuel Sendero [The last Song of Manuel Sendero], his favorite among his novels and a very ambitious work, treats the problem of exile and expatriation. Mascara, a turn in his work, treats the problems of evil in more general terms. His first play, an adaptation of Viudas, had its professional debut at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles in 1990.

I interviewed Dorfman in September of 1989 [see Chasqui, mayo 1991] at his home in Durham, North Carolina -he teaches at Duke one semester each year- where we talked about his work now that Pinochet had been voted out of office in the plebiscite of 1988. «It won’t be easy», he said. «We have chosen a non-violent way of getting rid of the dictator, one which involves living on with him for a year and a half, and living on with his army and his henchmen for many years to come. I’m going to have to find a way to sit down at the table with people who may have been responsible for killing my friends... In fact, I’m working on a project that deals precisely with this dilemma of living side by side with those who have wronged you. Does it bring out the worst in you? Does it bring out the best in you? I’m not sure whether it’s a play or a novel. It’s there as a possibility». The following spring, Dorfman returned to Chile for the first time since the plebiscite. Before he left, he told me that he intended to work on a sequel to Mascara. Several months later, I received a letter from Chile. «I’ve just finished a new play», he wrote. «It’s the best thing I’ve written». I could feel his excitement. The play was Death and the Maiden.

Set in a seaside villa in Chile, or «any country that has given itself a democratic government just after a long period of dictatorship, «the play has only there characters: Gerardo and Paulina, a husband and wife, played by Richard Dreyfuss and Glenn Close, and a stranger, Gene Hackman, who helps Gerardo with a flat tire late one night. A lawyer, Gerardo has just been appointed to a presidential commission to compile the testimony of the victims of the former regime. Arriving home from a meeting with the president of the republic, Gerardo tells Paulina that he cannot accept the post without her blessing. The commission will uncover the truth about the horrors inflicted upon so many. Paulina herself a victim. «You’ve already accepted, haven’t you?» she asks him. «Yes», he confesses. And so begins a play that attempts to unravel a tangled web of truth and lies.

Hearing the news of the commission on the radio, the kind stranger returns to congratulate Gerardo. From the bedroom Paulina listens to the men talk and recognizes the stranger’s voice as that of Dr. Miranda,

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the man who had raped and tortured her after her arrest years before. But could she be sure it was him? It had been so many years and she was blindfolded while captive. As Paulina holds a gun to the stranger’s head, Gerardo pleads with her not to pull the trigger. What will happen to the country if victims seek vengeance with the ferocity of their tormentors? The two agree to try the stranger there at the villa, with Paulina serving as his accuser and Gerardo as his defense counsel. «Save me from this madwoman», pleads the stranger to Gerardo. «You are the voice of civilization». Gerardo mediates between the two, just as Dorfman’s play mediates a whole set of complex and gut-wrenching moral issues, without ever moralizing or offering pat answers.

The play’s title comes from a piece by Schubert. Dr. Miranda played this music as he inflicted his torture upon his victims. Years later, Paulina still cannot bear to listen to it. Much of the strength of Death and the Maiden comes from the empowerment of Paulina. An ongoing victim of her experience, during the course of the play she holds the gun and she directs the action. Should she blow out his brains? Can she allow him to lie? During the unfolding of the action we watch her become whole again, and the experience is uplifting. One cannot fail to be affected by this powerful drama.

The final scene takes place in a concert hall where Schubert’s «Death and the Maiden» is being performed. In a very effective touch in this production, a glass curtain is lowered reflecting the live audience in the theater and giving the scene that the characters on stage are sitting in a full concert hall: in effect, the audience is made part of the play, which in fact has been happening from the opening lines. The issues treated in Death and the Maiden are ones which involve and affect us all.

Can a politically committed writer continue to work in a system that has made significant progress toward democracy? In Death and the Maiden, Ariel Dorfman answers this question with a resounding yes.

John Incledon
Albright College

In an effort to bring contemporary poetry to the masses, Quilombhoje Literatura, an organization of Afro-Brazilian writers, is presenting a series of poetry readings in various «Casas de Cultura», libraries, and other cultural settings. Their appearances have been arranged by the Ministry of Culture of the city of São Paulo.

Quilombhoje Literatura began in the late 70s in São Paulo for the purpose of providing a forum for writers who desired to produce a literature addressing concerns that are specific to the Afro-Brazilian experience. Disillusioned because both commercial and university presses demonstrated a lack of receptivity to literary works that refute Brazil’s myth of racial democracy or those expressing an African aesthetic vision, poet and dramatist, Luis Silva, also known as Cuti, established Quilombhoje Literatura for the purpose of engaging in dialogue with other authors with similar concerns. The group later took responsibility for the publication of Cadernos Negros, an annual anthology of Afro-Brazilian literature. Numerous writers have published their poems and short stories in Cadernos Negros. A few of these authors are Paulo Colina, Oswaldo de Camargo, Esmeralda Ribeiro, Marcio Barbosa, Jamu Minka, Abelardo Rodrigues, Jônatas Conceição da Silva, Ele Semog, Miriam Alves, Oubi Inaê Kibuko, J. Abilio Ferreira, and Sônia Fátima da Conceição. In July of 1992, the fifteenth volume of Cadernos Negros will be published.

On March 15, 1992, with the support of São Paulo’s Ministry of Culture, Cuti and journalists Esmeralda Ribeiro and Marcio Barbosa, gave poetry readings at the Casa de Cultura Butantã on Rua Mizumoto. In some cases, poets performed dramatic readings of their works. For other poems, poets and audience engaged in poetic recitation based on call and response structures characteristic of the cultures of the African diaspora. Such structures require that the audience repeat passages of the poetry, or supply responses to poetic statements, thus engaging the audience in the creative process.

Poems touched on a wide range of subject matter dealing with the African experience in Brazil from its beginnings to the present day. «Grito de uma Raça» lamented the contemporary concern of the daily murder of abandoned children by death squads in Brazil’s urban areas. The overwhelming majority of the victims of this violence are black children. The reality of hunger was the topic of «Gente Com Fome». Poets offered «Canto aos Palmares», a work recognizing the tradition of resistance symbolized by the Quilombo dos Palmares, an independent kingdom of runaway slaves established in Brazil in 1610. Other poems recited during the performance were «Eu Tenho Uma Dúvida», «Canto Para Sentar Axé», «Confusão Da Mulata», «Pai Noel», «Eu Sou Carvão», «Viagem do Preto» and «A Luta Continua».

Despite judgments of some critics and academics who characterize literature by Afro-Brazilians as marginal and therefore unworthy of attention, the poetry recital made it evident that the writers of Quilombhoje are among those who are engaged in a discussion of some of the most pressing moral issues of our times: starvation, racism, and the plight of abandoned children. The involvement and participation of the audience, likewise, reflected not only the concern about these issues, but also popular acceptance and identification with recitation forms drawn from an African aesthetic tradition.

Quilombhoje created its name by combining quilombo, the word describing an independent settlement of runaway slaves and hoje, the word meaning «today».

Carolyn Richardson Durham
Texas Christian University

El día 25 de marzo de 1992 réplicas de las tres carabelas españolas del descubrimiento arribaron a la isla de Galveston (Texas), lugar que en su día pertenecía a la Capitanía General de la Habana pero que nunca fue visitada por las tres carabelas originales. Anteriormente, los tres buques-réplicas habían echado anclas en Puerto Rico, la República Dominicana y Corpus Christi, en la costa tejana del Golfo de México. Desafortunadamente, por razones no del todo claras, las tres carabelas no habían podido fondear en aguas territoriales de Cuba. El domingo, 29 de marzo, la multitud de turistas y curiosos que acudieron a Galveston para verlas fue tal que se tuvo que extender en unas tres horas el previsto horario de su último día de visita. El público fue convidado por el Consulado de España en Houston a champán, vinos y tapas españoles y fueron amenizados con bailes flamencos. Al terminar la juerga flamenca, la tripulación de la Santa María, la Niña y la Pinta levó anclas para Nueva Orleáns.

David Ross Gerling
Sam Houston State University

En vista de la Expo y los Juegos Olímpicos, el Ejército español despliega su mayor contraataque al terrorismo. El Ejército español inició el domingo 1 de marzo su mayor despliegue frente al terrorismo desde la instauración de la democracia, en 1975. Durante los próximos siete meses y medio hasta el 12 de octubre, fecha de clausura de la Expo 92, unos 3.500 militares, la mayoría soldados de reemplazo, vigilarán los casi 1.000 kilómetros de vía férrea, tanto convencional como de alta velocidad, entre Madrid y Sevilla. Hay casi 400 puestos de vigilancia, el 75% de ellos en la línea de alta velocidad. En julio, otros 3.000 militares serán desplegados en la celebración de los JJ.OO. de Barcelona. Francia, por su parte, destinará un mayor número de agentes para evitar la infiltración de etarras en España. [El País, 3 de marzo de 1992]

John P. Gabriele
College of Wooster

Arrival of the rainy season was supposed to bring relief for the planet’s most populous and polluted city, but dangerous levels of smoggy contamination persist. The dirty air shared by 15 million people looks bad, smells bad and tastes bad. For many, it also feels bad.

«It burns my eyes», said street vendor Luis Hernández, 18, as he diced jalapeños at a hamburger stand in Chapultepec Park recently. But unlike others in congested Mexico City, Hernández said he has felt no other health consequences from constant exposure to el esmog.

The city breeds nearly 235 cubic feet of polluted air per resident daily. Doctors at the Autonomous National University of Mexico estimate that air contamination contributes to 5,000 deaths a year in what locals derisively call Make-sick-o City. The ill effects of breathing bad air range from respiratory and eye irritation to cancer and infant brain damage, according to research built on decades of experience in pollution-blighted Los Angeles, London and Tokyo.

To beat the odds, some Mexico City joggers and bicyclists have taken to wearing gas masks. Resident and businesses keep windows shut even during the fresh breezes that precede frequent afternoon thundershowers. The government has limited car use and closed or cut production at factories violationg stricter environmental laws.

For the most part, residents seem to have grown accustomed to the foul air, which is laden with dangerous amounts of ozone, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and lead. Daily reports from 25 air-monitoring stations verify the hazards, but few people other than the sick and elderly have been prompted to reduce exposure.

A professional soccer team synchronizes its practices to coincide with better air-quality readings, usually in the late afternoons, and people have been urging the government to adjust academic calendars so students can avoid the worst exposure period of January to March.

Last week, the air quality was rated «unsatisfactory» every day. The highest ozone levels were recorded Monday, when readings were more than twice the ozone level considered safe in the United States. In February, the readings hit four times the U.S. standard.

The heavy contamination season runs from November to April. Pollution is sandwiched between a layer of warm air and cool air in the Valley of Mexico, altitude 7,300 ft. The vexing thermal inversion pattern has prompted scientists to seriously reconsider a 1974 proposal to install fans with giant gas burners pointed skyward to blow hot-air holes through inversion layers.

The «macro-ventilator» is but 1 of 200 proposals under consideration by researchers, all aimed at solving a problem that only recently has been quantified. Only since 1986 has the city been measuring air pollution with sophisticated equipment.

The practice of holding polluters accountable is a more recent development. Last week, the government began unprecedented audits of Mexico’s 375 worst polluters, including 86 Pemex installations and the Mexican affiliate of Houston-based oil field services giant Schlumberger. President Carlos Salinas de Gortari already has ordered the closure of a local refinery of Pemex, the government petroleum monopoly.

At least one-third of the city’s pollution emanates from smokestacks. The 50 worst industrial offenders are cement and chemical plants, textile and paper mills, glass factories and food manufacturers. Only 2 of the 50 plants had pollution-control devices installed as of March, the government said.

About 70 percent of the air contaminants -5.5 million metric tons- comes from tailpipes of the

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city’s 3 million vehicles. To cut the emissions, the government promotes lead-free fuels and conversion to natural gas.

During episodes of severe pollution, drivers are required to keep their cars off the streets one or two days a week, as part of a two-year-old system based on license plate numbers and colors.

The driving ban has had mixed success. As many as 1 million vehicles were idled when pollution reached historically high levels in March. But wealthy Mexicans bought extra cars so they would not be stranded. And many of the less-fortunate tried to defy the ban and its $150 fine. A $75 bribe was considered enough to avoid impoundment.

Those seeking psychological relief from the smog can find ample getaway weekend hotel packages in nearby cities and beach resorts. Real estate agents hawk new home sites that are an hour away from the smog.

But that’s all small change compared with the outlays by businesses that want to continue operating in Mexico City, where 30,000 industries spend millions of dollars each year for new antipollution equipment and have created a booming «green» industry. Some, including General Motors, balk at the costs and simply close inner-city plants.

Last month, the government closed 15 urban factories permanently and suspended operations of 24 others for pollution violations. The government got serious about policing industries in 1990 when it embarked en a half-billion dollar program to identify polluters.

President Salinas has committed $2.5 billion more over the next four years. This month, he created a Cabinet-level «super secretariat» to oversee the efforts of federal, state and city environmental agencies. (Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 5/23/92)

Richard A. Picerno
Central Connecticut State University

Mexico opened a new tourism office in San Antonio, Texas, recently, devoted entirely to providing information to U.S. travelers bound South of the Border by surface transportation: bus, train, ship and -its special concern- private car or recreational vehicle. The move is part of a major campaign to boost tourism to the country’s border areas.

As part of the multi-million-dollar effort, Mexico is acting to: substantially increase the availability of unleaded gas throughout the country; open the door to more motorcoach tours originating in the United States. Right now, most bus tours begin in Mexico or at the border and are operated on Mexican buses with Mexican drivers and guides; build its first highway rest areas, promising that they will be kept safe and clean. The first 10 -each with restrooms, a restaurant and a convenience shop- are being built on roads leading into the Mexican interior from the U.S. border; increase the fleet of Green Angels, the roving auto-service vehicles that assist stranded motorists. Currently, about 1,500 Green Angels ply the nation’s highways, and another 450 are being added, primarily in the border area; improve the nation’s major highways. It’s an ongoing task, but about 5,000 miles of new or improved roads are projected for the near future. A new four-lane, 275-mile highway linking Mexico City and the Pacific beach resort of Acapulco is expected to open next year, cutting the seven-hour driving time significantly; enhance the historic and cultural appeal of the nation’s border communities. As part of this project, two $400 million theme parks patterned after Disney World’s Epcot Center are under construction: Quetzalcoatl in Tijuana, which will trace Mexico’s heritage from pre-Columbian civilizations to the Spanish colonial era; and Paso del Norte in Ciudad Juárez, which will reflect Mexico’s history from its war of independence in the early 19th century to the present. Another related project is a historical driving tour along a 200-mile stretch of the Rio Grande River on the Texas-Mexico border, with roads paralleling the river on both sides of the border.

«We want to change the image of these border towns», says Sigfrido Paz Paredes, director of the Northern Border program for the Mexican Government Tourism Office. «It’s out of date». Some of these improvements are still in the future, but Mexico’s hope is that as they are implemented, the flow of overland travelers south will increase dramatically. Mexico attracts more than 6 million foreign visitors annually, most of them from the United States. Currently, 61 percent of the nation’s visitors arrive by airplane and only 35 percent by land. But tourism officials are convinced that the greatest potential for growth is from auto, bus or train travel from the United States and Canada. (Washington Post, 11/2/ 91)

Richard A. Picerno
Central Connecticut State University

About the size of West Virginia, Costa Rica has a myriad of climates, from the beaches and costal mangrove swamps, up tropical slopes to rain forests and mountaintops shrouded in cool mists. Stretching from the Pacific to the Caribbean, the country is noted worldwide for its conservation effort with 12 percent of its land given to 29 national parks and reserves. Ecotourism is a growth industry for the Ticos, as the locals call themselves.

Life looks simple and healthy for the Tico people, who abolished the army in 1949 and spent their money on education and health rate. They new have a 93 percent literacy rate -and it shows among the helpful, proud and cultured people the traveler meets. All roads fan out from the central mountain capital, San José, like spokes on a wheel. Fast, clean, comfortable buses inexpensively cross the countryside.

But the way to see and enjoy the natural tropical mysteries of Costa Rica is on the two narrow-gauge

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railroads which run from the mountain capital, one to Puntarenas on the west coast, the other to the port city of Limón on the east coast.

Heading west, the train passes scenic villages not reached by road. Young mothers sit on the verandas of brightly painted blue and green houses with red roofs and lift their babies to wave at the train. Elders sit in rocking chairs in neat, flower-packed gardens under tall tropical trees.

The blue train shudders over metal bridges. Below, glimpsed through a mesh of jungle canopy, rushes the Barranca River. Rice paddies, coffee and banana plantations, corn fields and tomato plots line its gorge.

The journey ends at the seaside town of Puntarenas -a hot spot for commercial and sports fishing. To the south lie cove after cove of beaches, a sun worshiper’s paradise, and a launch strip away is the Nicoya Peninsula, a wild and natural retreat.

Heading down the coast, the tourist’s first stop is the surfing beach at Jaco. Farther down is the Manuel Antonia National Park. A nature preserve, the park is home to a bevy of monkeys -howlers, spider monkeys, the white-faced capuchins and tiny marmosets- that swing through a tropical forest of wild cashew, copal and balsa wood.

Morning sunlight flashes on the red of a scarlet macaw in flight. The luscious jungle of rain-forest green swoops down to caress the four crescent beaches at Playa Escondida. A trail of hotels nestle at the park’s gates.

Take the dawn ferry from Puntarenas, across the Gulf of Nicoya to Paguera, then hop a Jeep taxi down the red dirt roads to Montezuma at the southern-most tip of the Nicoya Peninsula. Hotels and pensions and some homes make up the village of Montezuma gateway to the Cabo Blanco reserve.

In contrast to the neatly manicured pathways of Manuel Antonio with labeled trees and picnic spots, the wild Cabo Blanco reserve has only been recently opened to the public. One of the earliest national parks, it has been left to nature and has full lush blossoms and animals half hidden in the undergrowth.

One beach to the east of Montezuma, Karen Mogensen Fischer has a private reserve with three cabins for rent. Devoid of electricity, they are Spartan. But, nestled in the rain forest at the edge of the beach -where white-faced capuchin monkeys join visitors for a banana breakfast on the patio while howler monkeys wail overhead and technicolor birds flutter by- this hideaway is the ultimate in tranquility.

Fischer and her husband left Scandinavia almost 40 years ago in search of the ideal world; they believe they found it in Costa Rica. Active in the ecological movement, they were instrumental in orchestrating the establishment of the national reserve system.

A day’s journey away, yet in another universe, is the bustling, contemporary and cultured metropolis of San Jose. The central capital is a good base to plan cycle, white-water rafting and diving trips or tour the nature reserves and handcraft centers such as Sarchi, the capital of the brightly painted ox carts which are the folk art signature of Costa Rica.

The city offers a downtown culture cruise with a dramatic presentation of pre-Columbian gold at the subterranean Gold Museum, housed in an old fort overlooking the city, which displays ex-President Oscar Arias Sánchez’s 1987 Nobel Peace Prize for his Central American Peace Plan. The National Theater is a historical landmark presenting ballet, theater and orchestra concerts. It’s sweeping marble staircases, frescoes and gilt and mirrored decor are worth a visit. It’s open for tours during the day and has a great coffee bar. Next door the central tourist office with English language speakers can answer any questions with a computer printout of pertinent information.

The Jungle Train descends from San Jose’s 6,000 feet to sea level at the port city Limón in 107 miles. This narrow-gauge railway was constructed in 1871 and celebrated as an engineering feat. (The Providence Journal, 9/15/91)

Richard A. Picerno
Central Connecticut State University

El jurado del primer Premio Internacional de Literatura «Juan Rulfo», reunido en Guadalajara, Jalisco, México, del 27 al 30 de junio de 1991, acordó por unanimidad concederlo al poeta chileno Nicanor Parra. El premio de 100.000 dólares reconoce a escritores latinoamericanos o del Caribe que se expresan en español, en portugués, en inglés y en francés, a escritores de cualquier otra región de América que se expresen artísticamente en español, y a autores de los países de la Península: España y Portugal [Boletín Bibliográfico Internacional Azteca. Fondo de Cultura Económica, 11. 13 (julio 1991): 118].

Editorial Sudamericana publica la nueva novela de Isabel Allende. El nuevo libro de Isabel Allende, El plan infinito se basa en la vida de su marido: «la voz del protagonista es la voz suya y cuando él habla, es su voz la que habla». El tiraje será de 50,000 ejemplares en una edición conjunta para Chile, Argentina y Uruguay [Revista de Libros de El Mercurio, Santiago de Chile, 15 de diciembre de 1991: 8].

Durante las Navidades en España se agotó la primera edición de cien mil ejemplares de la nueva edición de la última novela de Isabel Allende, El plan infinito, una búsqueda de la identidad hispana en Estados Unidos [El Mercurio, Santiago Chile, 15 de enero de 1992: A 6].

Inés D. Blackburn
University of Colorado, Colorado Springs

A recent book entitled A Nation of Enemies: Chile Under Pinochet, by Pamela Constable and Arturo Valenzuela, has been reviewed by Michael Massing in The New York Times Book Review (Oct. 20, 1991). Excerpts of Massing’s review follow.

Any chronicle of the Pinochet era in Chile must come to terms with two key questions. First, how could a nation with such a venerable democratic tradition produce a regime of such ruthlessness? For almost 150 years, Chile enjoyed stable, constitutional rule, with a political culture so civil as to prompt comparisons with England. Yet in 1973 the country suddenly plunged into a vortex of violence and brutality that would make it a pariah among nations. For much of the next 16 years, Chile’s ample middle class -probably the most liberal and best educated in all of Latin America- sat silently by as the military disbanded political parties, engaged in summary executions and otherwise gutted the country’s democratic institutions. How to explain this?

Second, Chile under Gen. Augusto Pinochet was made the subject of a radical experiment in free-market economics. Policy was left to a clique of laissez-faire theorists, known as the Chicao Boys, who prescribed a form of capitalistic shock treatment in which only the fittest survived. The results were hailed by many Western economists, and today Chile is held up as a model for other third world countries. How justified are such claims?

A Nation of Enemies is one of the first books to appear on Chile since the austere, autocratic general was finally removed from power last year. Pamela Constable, a correspondent for The Boston Globe, and Arturo Valenzuela, the director of the Center for Latin American Studies at Georgetown University, interviewed hundreds of Chileans about their experiences under the dictatorship. Rather than write a conventional narrative history, the authors of Chilean society -the business community, political parties, the courts, young people, the rich and the poor. Their aim, they explain in the preface, «was not to polemicize the plight of a relatively small number of Chileans -perhaps tens of thousands- who suffered from direct political repression. It was to place such suffering in context, to understand how an aberrant value system had taken over the gamut of social relations, and to show how it affected daily life».

Chile, write Ms. Constable and Mr. Valenzuela, had long been «divided by enclaves of clan, class, and party» -all masked by a «veneer of civility». When that veneer was suddenly ripped away, Chileans retreated into their subcultures, nursing grievances «through a thousand private prisms». In the process, «decent, educated people were poisoned by irrational hatred that permitted them to regard leftists as inhuman». As this book makes clear, though, most Chileans were not so fervent. Neither Marxists nor Pinochetists, they were «dubious spectators caught in a system they had not chosen». Fearful of confrontation with the state, they «ducked and kept quiet, praying they would survive the storm».

When General Pinochet called a plebiscite on his rule in 1988, it was the poor, not the nouveaux riches, who tipped the balance against him. The campaign to oust the dictator was one of the most inspiring events in recent Latin American history. Ms. Constable and Mr. Valenzuela have compiled a meticulously fair record of a very tumultous time, without losing sight of its drama. In the end we are left with the image of the humiliated, embittered tyrant, attending the inauguration of his successor, Patricio Aylwin: «After the ceremony ended and Pinochet stepped into his open limousine between rows of matching white horses, the last of South America’s modern-day dictators was pelted with tomatoes and eggs».

George R. McMurray
Colorado State University

In the midst of civil unrest and the implementation of far-reaching edicts issued by sectors of the Peruvian government to stem the presence of the Shining Path and protests at San Marcos University, students, teachers, and researchers continue to experience the upheaval. As a backdrop to the problems plaguing the National Library of Peru, recent events have included but are by no means limited to: a protracted strike last year of five months by 250,000 teachers and administrators to denounce low wages and to demand back pay, an act which resulted in hunger strikes by union members (SUTEP) and nearly cost students the loss of the school year; accusations leveled at former President Alan García by the Senate alleging his involvement in the BCCI scandal; the August 14 projectile bombing of the Ministry of Education which destroyed several of its upper floors, a move officially linked to Maoists and dissident university and SUTEP factions; and, a sympathy strike in support of San Marcos students by members of the National Federation of Workers of the University of Peru (FENTUP), whose leader, Romero Nicho, declared to this writer the union’s flexibility in that its services were to be withheld only thrice weekly «in order to impede as little as possible students’ study». Hit hard by these events has been San Marcos University. Founded with a patent obtained by the Dominican Tomás de San Martín from Charles V on 12 May 1551 and once considered the «Salamanca of America», the university has seen the inescapable militarization of its campus (Hispania 74..2 [May 1991]: 358). In one situation, skirmishes with police who were sent to the Law School «to attack» grafitti-laden walls with paint and brushes resulted in violent confrontations with students, and especially with workers who felt that their livelihood was encroached upon when police began to repair the damaged walls. Military presence in classrooms has been the norm as have nightly curfews in the University City area. Although civil unrest and death are daily occurrences, notably in outlying areas, what impresses most is the vast body of contradictory information

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-official, informal, censored, and propagandistic.

It is in the midst of there events that the National Library finds itself entrapped in a formidable situation. In an act separate from FENTUP and SUTEP, library staffers have intermittently staged «legal» strikes that are free from government intervention: in such cases the government recognizes the workers as being on «asamblea permanente» (strike alert) but formally not on strike. The new library director José Tamayo Herrera (former director Juan Mejía Baca died suddenly in June 1991) believes that he can do little to increase salaries save petition the various offices of the Ministry of Education. The future of the 300 plus workers is now uncertain, as is a potential increase in their average monthly salary of approximately 37 soles (roughly $45 U.S. dollars). «This problem is one which plagues Peru’s professional class», stated Juan Carlos Medina Fernández, Director of Public Relations and Communications. «Librarians’ and teachers’ work is deemed less important than that performed by garbage workers or porters. Salaries are low and unequal. It is shameful that the [library] director’s salary is equivalent to that of a concierge at PetroPeru».

Medina Fernández went on to explain that «there is no formal distinction made in Peru between education and culture. Since the National Library is part of the Ministry of Education its budget is not separate from that of museums and other cultural institutions». Seventy percent of the library’s current operating costs meet salaries and the remaining portion is targeted (in order of imminency) for maintenance, utilities, office equipment, supplies, and book purchases. The cultural budget is divided between schools (public and municipal), the National Library, museums, and other select institutions whose finances are equally inadequate to handle routine acquisitions such as books. Firm in its position that San Marcos University ought to buy from its own funds books needed by its students, the National Library concluded that it is unfair to ask it to assume this burden simply because the government has seen fit to discontinue university funding for practical and political reasons.

The strike has had an unsettling effect on staffers and library users. With over four million titles to its credit, the demand for services overtaxes the limited resources. According to Medina Fernández the National Library is in the throws of an «identity crisis. Is it a private institution or a public national library?» Readers complain of poor service and the inability to borrow items. San Marcos University students deplore the fact that they can not find the titles they require for investigation. Archives suffer from improper conservation: most rare books are housed on open shelves where they are subjected to the ravages of extremes of temperature, moisture, humidity, dust, injudicious handling, and deferred building maintenance. Medina Fernández suggested that much of the confusion about the library’s lack of definition stemmed from misguided criteria for use: «We are not a lending university library nor are we a private restricted-access facility», he quipped, likening the National Library’s dilemma to that which has he fallen the country’s Library of Congress. Located in the building that once housed the Inquisition Tribunal, the Library of Congress is often the only library open during strikes and has become chaotic and overcrowded with secondary school and university students competing for study positions and access to its limited card catalogues. Central Library staffers of Greater San Marcos University have tended to respect general strike calls.

The National Library’s former distinction of bordering on the Ministry of Education, part of Greater San Marcos University and, in particular, the Congress building, today proves negligible. Avenida Abancay belongs to a crime-ridden section of town where juvenile delinquency, traffic congestion, vice, noise, pollution, street vendors, strikes, marches, protests and parades all convene. It is commonplace to observe that the Congress site is protected by guards, patrol dogs and armoured cars; streets are cordoned off at certain times of the day; pedestrians are not permitted to traverse the Plaza Bolivar (a.k.a. Plaza de la Inquisición or Plaza del Congreso) and must circuitously reach their destination. In terms of frequency, identity checks compete with tear gas and shots fired in the air to discourage crowds. Local tourist agents acknowledge that their industry has been crippled by a marked decline in travel to the country.

Founded in 1821, destroyed by war in 1843 and rebuilt in 1844, the National Library is in the process of being reorganized. «President Fujimori has asked for reorganization of all academic institutions», said Medina Fernández with encouragement, «but he has to face the problem of controlling an excessive workforce». Some library workers are now given incentives for voluntary or early retirement while others are terminated by lottery or have their contracts bought from them. Plans are being formulated to build a new national library. The proposal requires $30 million and, thus far, no national funds have been pledged to support this venture. One solution contemplated by the library’s administration is to appeal for international aid in the hope that the benevolence of interested nations could offset the losses the library has experienced in a hyper-inflationary economy.

Despite the challenges before it, the National Library of Peru continues to welcome investigators from other countries. Visitors can expect to encounter knowledgeable staffers willing to accommodate their research interests and to facilitate access to the diverse treasures of catalogued and uncatalogued holdings. The library still publishes at irregular intervals two scholarly journals: Boletín de la Biblioteca Nacional and Fénix.

Jerry M. Williams
West Chester University

Entre el 10 y el 16 de octubre de 1991, el Maestro Germán Arciniegas realizó una visita a la ciudad de Washington, patrocinada por el Foro Cultural Colombiano, ofreciendo una serie de conferencias en que enfocó su concepto del Quinto Centenario de 1492.

El jueves 10 de octubre su visita a la División Hispánica de la Biblioteca del Congreso fue seguida de una conferencia titulada «500 Años para qué?» en la Organización de Estados Americanos, donde fue condecorado por el Foro Cultural Colombiano (Presidente, Dr. Darío Restrepo) y le fue presentada una bandera izada en su honor en el Capitolio de los Estados Unidos.

El 11 de octubre fue recibido por el National Press Club, y la USIA transmitió a la América Latina un programa televisado, «Una Charla Periodística con el Maestro Germán Arciniegas», más otra entrevista por radio de la Voz de América. Don Germán obsequió algunos de sus libros a la Biblioteca del National Press Club.

El sábado 12 de octubre Arciniegas visitó la exposición de la National Gallery of Art, «Circa 1492: Art in the Age of Exploration».

El 15 de octubre dictó una conferencia en la Biblioteca del Congreso, «América no es un descubrimiento, es una invención», y por la noche el Embajador de Colombia Jaime García-Parra y Sra. en su residencia ofrecieron una recepción en su honor.

El 16 de octubre en la Smithsonian Institution ofreció una conferencia titulada «O Descubrimiento de América, o Creación de un Nuevo Mundo», precedida de su visita a la exposición «Seeds of Change» en el Museum of Natural History. Después concluyó su visita con una conferencia «América frente al Quinto Centenario», auspiciada por la Academic Association for the Quincentenary, en el Departamento de Lenguas Romances de la Universidad George Washington.

James W. Robb
George Washington University

Entre el 21 de febrero y el 3 de marzo (Martes de Carnaval) del año del quinto centenario, Galveston, Tejas, fue el escenario de un espléndido carnaval que se dedicó a España y la cultura hispánica de los Estados Unidos. Galveston (el pueblo de Gálvez) fue nombrado en honor de Bernardo de Gálvez quien fue el capitán general de Cuba en el siglo 18. Sin embargo, la isla fue descubierta por Alvar Núñez Cabeza De Vaca en 1528. En el siglo 19 y principios del 20 Galveston fue conocida como la «Reina del Golfo» hasta que su puerto perdió su importancia frente al de Houston. Durante su época de esplendor fue un lugar de los ricos y los famosos, con grandes casinos, escandalosos cabarets y jacarandosos carnavales.

Hace apenas un lustro se resucitó la tradición carnavalesca en la isla. Durante este carnaval del quinto centenario fue como si la isla entera se hubiera vestido de gala. Las banderas tricolores de Carnestolendas con sus franjas verdes, oro y moradas, simbolizando la primavera, la riqueza y la cuaresma, respectivamente, colgaban de los balcones de las mansiones y cubrían las fachadas de hasta las chozas de madera más humildes. La catedral del «Sagrado Corazón» parecía más blanca que nunca, como si fuera una gigantesca tarta helada derritiéndose bajo el sol. Con este trasfondo pintoresco fue maravilloso de ver reptar por las calles bordeadas de palmeras las fastuosas góndolas repletas de bucaneros que tiraban collares y doblones a la muchedumbre. Como se podrá imaginar, durante estos días uno podía saborear cómo era la «Reina del Golfo» en un tiempo glorioso ya pasado pero no del todo perdido.

David Ross Gerling
Sam Houston State University

Three Catalan women writers died within the last year; Helena Valentí (1940-1990), Maria Aurélia Capmany (1918-1991), and Montserrat Roig (1946-1991).

Valentí was the daughter of a well-known classicist. She studied at the University of Barcelona and then went to England where she taught at Cambridge, became a feminist, and began to write. She returned to Catalonia in 1974 and wrote several novels and short stories and survived by translating. Among the translations she was most proud of are works by Datherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf, Doris Lessing, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Her daughter Andrea was born in 1979 and lives in Barcelona. Valentí’s works of fiction are: L’amor adult (1977), La solitud d’Anna (1981), La dona errant (1986), and D’esquena al mar (1991).

Capmany is often cited by younger Catalan women writers as their mentor during clandestinity. She was a pillar of anti-Franco activities, a staunch upholder of Catalan culture, and an ardent feminist. She translated various works from French and Italian, and was cofounder of the Escola d’Art Drámatic Adriá Gual. She excelled in fiction, drama, essay, and journalism and became cultural councillor for the city of Barcelona in the 1980s. Her works are too numerous to list, so I will name just a few recent ones: Aquelles dames d’altre temps (1990), Ara (1988), El cap de Sant Jordi (1988), and La rialla del mirall (1989).

Of the three, Roig is the best-known outside of Catalonia, and most of her work is available in Castilian. Like several others, she worked as a journalist most of her life, writing books on the Catalans interned in Nazi concentration camps, the siege of Leningrad, and various feminist issues. Her passion for social justice is apparent in her work. Her mother, Albina Fransitorra, and her two sons, still live in Barcelona. Like her admired mentor Capmany, she was prolific, so I will mention only a few of her most recently published narratives: La veu melodiosa (1987), El cant de la joventut (1989), and Digues que m’estimes encara que sigui mentida (1991).

Kathleen McNerney
West Virginia University

(Del diario Siglo Veintiuno, sábado, 15 de febrero, 1992). «Ayer a las 7 de la mañana y a la edad de 90 años, dejó de existir el licenciado David Vela Salvatierra, ex-director del desaparecido diario El Imparcial y de larga trayectoria en el arte y la cultura guatemaltecas, por lo que su partida constituye un vacío profundo en la vida nacional.

Un infarto cortó la prolija existencia de quien fuera líder estudiantil y que combinó más de 6 décadas de ejercicio periodístico, con su vocación por la docencia universitaria, la literatura, la poesía e incluso, la función diplomática como delegado en misiones oficiales al exterior.

«Don David» sobrevivía a la Generación de los años ‘20, entre quienes destacaron figuras como Miguel Ángel Asturias, Clemente Marroquín Rojas, Luis Cardoza y Aragón, entre otros valores que forjaron la historia guatemalteca.

Como nota personal, hace varios años cuando todavía vivía el respetado crítico, poeta, y periodista, don César Brañas (q.e.p.d.) de El Imparcial, mi marido el Dr. Tomás Irving y yo fuimos con frecuencia a visitar a don César, y luego a don David en su oficina. La última vez que vi a don David fue el año pasado cuando le hicieron un homenaje los periodistas de Guatemala.

El fallecimiento del estimado licenciado y periodista será recordado por haber formado él parte de una generación de intelectuales de renombre entre quienes figuraron además de los ya mencionados, Gustavo Martínez Nolasco y Federico Hernández de León.

Evelyn Uhrhan Irving
Tennessee Technological University, Emerita

Enrique Labrador Ruiz, el célebre escritor cubano, murió en la ciudad de Miami el 11 de noviembre de 1991 a los 89 años. Labrador Ruiz era junto con Carpentier, Lezama Lima y Novás Calvouna de las primeras figuras de su generación en la narrativa cubana. Recibió el Premio Nacional de Novela en 1950 por La sangre hambrienta, y también era el autor, entre otros títulos, de El laberinto de sí mismo y El gallo en el espejo.

Labrador Ruiz se encontraba fuera de Cuba al triunfo de la Revolución cubana en 1959, pero después de volver a la isla ese mismo año, no le fue posible salir de nuevo hasta 1976. Se instaló junto con su esposa Cheché en un piso madrileño cerca de la Gran Vía en la calle Chinchilla, número 4, y allí mantenía las puertas abiertas a amigos, profesores y estudiantes de todas partes de América.

Labrador Ruiz y su esposa después pasaron a Venezuela y por fin a Estados Unidos en 1979, donde llegó a ser Honorary Fellow de la AATSP y donde publicó en 1991 su último libro, Cartas a la carte. Este libro, que el autor consideraba su obra prepóstuma, consiste en una serie de interesantes ensayos sobre diferentes aspectos de la vida y la literatura. [El nuevo (Miami) Herald, 12 de noviembre de 1991]

Ricardo Castells
Miami-Dade Community College

El poeta cubano-americano Amando Fernández fue galardonado con el XI premio de poesía Juan Ramón Jiménez, otorgado por la Diputación Provincial de Huelva, por su último libro de poesías Espacio mayor. Es la primera vez que un poeta latinoamericano recibe este prestigioso honor, el cual incluye un premio de $15,000 y la publicación del libro como parte de la colección Juan Ramón Jiménez.

Fernández nació en Cuba en 1949 y vivió en España de 1960 a 1980, fecha en la cual se mudó a Miami, donde es actualmente profesor de español en Miami-Dade Community College. Su producción poética anterior a Espacio mayor incluye El ruiseñor y la espada (V Premio Luis de Góngora de la Excelentísima Diputación Provincial de Córdoba, 1989), Materia y forma (XIII Premio de Poesía Ciudad de Badajoz, 1990) y Los siete círculos (Premio Antonio González de Lama de la ciudad de León, 1991).

Various literary and artistic prizes and awards have recently been announced. The following, listed by country, are some of many:

SPAIN:
Premio Planeta 1991 to Antonio Muñoz Molina for El jinete polaco.
Premio Torrente Ballester to Ignacio Martínez de Pisón for Nuevo plano de la ciudad secreta.
Premio «Tigre Juan» to Francisco Casavella for El triunfo.
Premio Nacional de Poesía «San Juan de la Cruz» to Miguel Fernández.
Premio Gerona de Teatro to José Antonio Contreras for Las amazonas del caballo.
Premio Rafael Alberti to María del Valle Rubio Monge.
Premio «Felipe Trigo» to Luis Alfonso Blanco Vila for Diálogo con las sombras.
Premio Jauja to Panamanian writer Juan Garcés.
Premio Fundación Guerrero de Música Española to composer Joaquín Rodrigo.
Premio Herralde to Javier García Sánchez for La historia más triste.
Premio Mundial Fernando Rielo de Poesía Mística to Peruvian José Poncorvo and Colombian Gabriel Adolfo Restrepo.
Premio de Teatro «Tirso de Molina» to Uruguayan writer Héctor Plaza Noblía, posthumously for Muerte en Frente Grande.
Premio Cervantes de Literatura 1991 to Francisco Ayala.
Premio Benito Pérez Galdós to Juan José Porto Rodríguez for La víbora.
Premio Novela Gallega «Blanco Amor» to



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Francisco Alonso Villaverde for Trailer.
Premio de Literatura de la Comunidad de Madrid to Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio.
MEXICO:
Premio Nacional de Cuento Juan Vicente Melo 1991 to José Luis Ontiveros.
Premio Nacional de Poesía Ramón López Velarde to Juan José Amador Martínez for Los caminos del tránsfuga.
Premio Nacional de Literatura 1991 to Fernando del Paso.
Premio Juan Rulfo to Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda for Contrabando.
Premio Nacional de Artes to Ricardo Legorreta (architecture), Vicente Rojo (art), and Mario Lavista (music).
Premio de Narrativa Colima 1991 to Carlos Montemayor for Guerra en el paraíso.
Premio Juan Rulfo to Chilean poet Nicanor Parra.
Premio de Obra de Arte 1991 to Ana María Vásquez for Pan de Muerto.
Premio Agustín Yáñez 1991 to Eusebio Ruvalcaba for Un hilito de sangre.
Premio Nacional de Literatura Gilberto Owen 1991 to Ana Clavel (short story) and Alfredo Espinosa Aguirre (poetry).
FRANCE:
Premio Rulfo to Spanish writer Luchi Núñez.
INTERNATIONAL:
Latin Union Literary Prize to Portuguese writer José Cardoso.

Sam L. Slick
University of Southern Mississippi

O poeta brasileiro João Cabral de Melo Neto acaba de ganhar o décimo segundo prêmio Neustadt de Literatura no valor de quarenta mil dólares, oferecido pela Universidade de Oklahoma, Norman.

Este prêmio é oferecido a cada dois anos por um júri composto de escritores, críticos e profissionais da literatura de todas as partes do mundo. Alguns ganhadores deste prêmio se tornaram posteriormente «Nobels» em Literatura, como é o caso, por exemplo, de Nadine Gordimer, Gabriel García Márquez e Octavio Paz.

João Cabral é um dos melhores poetas brasileiros vivos, tendo escrito extensivamente e ganhado vários prêmios de sabida importáncia no Brasil. Diplomata de carreira, tendo servido na Espanha por Vários anos, Cabral, no momento do resultado do concurso, encontrava-se em Manágua visitando sua filha. Seu trabalho pode ser definido como uma mescla entre o erudito e o popular, nunca esquecendo-se do caráter político; participante que norteia a literatura de ação e intervenção no real. O poeta nordestino foi trazido como candidato pelo professor Silviano Santiago, presidente da ABRALIC (Associação Brasileira de Literatura Comparada), professor universitário, crítico e um dos melhores romancistas brasileiros do período pós-moderno.

Francisco Caetano Lopes Junior
Stanford University

Luis Álvarez Piñer, nacido en Gijón en 1910, obtuvo el lunes 20 el Premio Nacional de Poesía. Álvarez Piñer fue premiado por En resumen 1927-1988, antología publicada por Pretextos y segundo de los volúmenes de que consta su obra. La trayectoria poética de Álvarez Piñer se inició en 1928 con la aparición de algunos poemas suyos en la revista Carmen de Gerardo Diego, titulados Poemas a cara o cruz. En 1936 publicó Suite alucinada que es su primer y único libro hasta En resumen y que consta de 17 poemas escritos entre 1927 y 1934. El jueves 23 Manuel Vázquez Montalbán ganó el Premio Nacional de Narrativa por su novela Galíndez publicada en 1990 por Seix Barral. La obra se estructura alrededor de la búsqueda, por parte de una investigadora norteamericana, de la verdad sobre el político vasco Jesús de Galíndez, torturado y asesinado en Santo Domingo en 1956. Nacido en Barcelona en 1939, Vázquez Montalbán es un autor prolífico y polifacético que reparte su extensa obra en los campos más diversos. Es también poeta, ensayista y gastrónomo. Por otra parte, al medievalista catalán Martí de Ríquer le fue otorgado el Premio Nacional de Ensayo por su libro en catalán Aproximació a Tirant una obra esencial para la lectura de la novela de Joanot Martorell, de cuya publicación se cumplieron 500 años el pasado noviembre. Por otro lado, Felipe Ruiz Martín fue galardonado el viernes 24 con el Nacional de Historia por su libro Pequeño capitalismo, gran capitalismo escrito en los años sesenta. La obra trata de cómo Castilla pagó los platos rotos de la sumisión del imperio español a los banqueros europeos. [El País 25 de mayo de 1991 ]

El escritor Francisco Ayala, de 85 años, obtuvo el 12 del presente mes el Premio Miguel Cervantes de Literatura por el conjunto de su obra. Nacido en Granada en 1906, Ayala es autor de 50 libros y es considerado autor de algunos de los mejores cuentos de la narrativa española de este siglo como El hechizado y La cabeza del cordero y de novelas como Muertes de perro, El fondo del vaso y El jardín de las delicias. Publicó su primera novela, Tragicomedia de un hombre sin espíritu, en 1925. Al estallar la guerra civil, regresó a España desde Argentina. Al fin de la contienda volvió a Argentina donde enseñó sociología hasta 1950. Luego vivió en Puerto Rico y los Estados Unidos donde dio clases en las universidades de Chicago y Nueva York. Regresó a España en 1960. Ayala obtuvo el premio en la tercera votación. Entre los finalistas, figuraban Miguel Delibes, Camilo José Cela, Mario Vargas Llosa, José Donoso y Gabriel García

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Márquez. Los últimos dos premios Cervantes habían correspondido a Augusto Roa Bastos y Adolfo Bioy Casares. El Cervantes va dotado con 12 millones de pesetas. En 1983 Ayala ganó el Premio Nacional de Literatura e ingresó en la Real Academia. En 1988 logró el Premio de las Letras Españolas. [El País, 13 de noviembre de 1991]

El prestigioso arabista español Emilio García Gómez, de 86 años de edad, fue galardonado el viernes 24 con el Premio Príncipe de Asturias de Comunicación y Humanidades en su 12a edición por decisión unánime del jurado. García Gómez se ha destacado por su labor de magisterio indiscutible en el mundo del arabismo y la proyección universal de su inmensa obra contribuyendo decisivamente al mejor entendimiento de la cultura y la vida del mundo del islam. Nacido en Madrid el 14 de junio de 1905, Emilio García Gómez es doctor por las universidades de El Cairo y Bagdad, es catedrático de Lengua y Literatura Árabe en la Complutense de Madrid, director del Instituto Miguel Asín, del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas y autor de una voluminosa obra, entre la cual figuran ediciones, traducciones y estudios sobre literatura árabe. García Gómez fue en una época embajador en Bagdad, Beirut y Ankara, y asesor sobre asuntos árabes, y figura en el séquito de los jefes de Estado árabes que visitan España. Es miembro numerario de la Academia del Reino de Marruecos, de la Real Academia Española de Historia y de la Real Academia Española. El premio va dotado con cinco millones de pesetas y una escultura de Joan Miró. Este año concurrieron al premio 25 candidatos. Quedaron finalistas los lingüistas Manual Alvar y Emilio Alarcos y el historiador Joaquín Pérez Villanueva. [El País, 27 de abril de 1992]

El escritor español Camilo José Cela, premio Nobel de Literatura, resultó galardonado el jueves 7 con el premio de Periodismo de Mariano de Cavia por su artículo Soliloquio del joven artista, publicado en el desaparecido diario El Independiente el pasado 18 de febrero. El jurado se reunió con las dependencias del diario ABC y estuvo formado por Juan José Armas Marcelo, Jaime Carvajal y Urquijo, Antonio Mingote, Darío Villanueva y Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo. [El País, 11 de mayo de 1992]

El viernes 8, el Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Artes 1992 le fue otorgado al pintor surrealista chileno Roberto Matta, de 81 años de edad. Concurrieron 50 candidaturas al premio. Resultaron finalistas los arquitectos Ricardo Bofill, Félix Candela y Francisco J. Sáenz, el compositor Joaquín Rodrigo y el actor mexicano Mario Moreno, mejor conocido como Cantinflas. La decisión del jurado resultó disputada entre la candidatura de Matta, propuesta por el gobierno de Navarra, y la de Cantinflas, propuesta por miembros del jurado. Tras sucesivos empates fue el voto de calidad del presidente del jurado, Antonio Pedrol Ríus, presidente del Consejo General de la Abogacía Española, que resolvió el fallo en favor del pintor chileno. El premio va dotado con cinco millones de pesetas y una escultura de Joan Miró. [El País, 11 de mayo de 1992]

El dramaturgo Francisco Nieva fue galardonado el viernes 29 con el premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras como dramaturgo innovador y continuador de una larga tradición teatral. Nacido en Valdepeñas, Ciudad Real, en 1927, Francisco Morales Nieva se trasladó a París en los años cincuenta para estudiar pintura, becado por el Instituto Francés. En París tomó contacto con el mundo del teatro y escribió sus primeras obras. En Italia colaboró en la primera película de Passolini (Accatone). Volvió a Madrid por invitación de Adolfo Marsillach. Durante diez años realizó escenografías para los principales montajes escénicos españoles. Destacado autor teatral y escenógrafo, su obra no empezaría a conocerse públicamente hasta el inicio de la democracia. Es miembro de la Real Academia de la Lengua y catedrático de Escenotecnia de la Real Escuela Superior de Arte Dramático. En su haber tiene premios como el Maite (1977), Nacional de Teatro (1980) y del Espectador y la Crítica (1980). Junto a Francisco Nieva resultaron prefinalistas del Asturias de las Letras los poetas Claudio Rodríguez y Carlos Bousoño y la novelista Rosa Chacel. En total, concurrieron 45 candidaturas procedentes de España y países de Iberoamérica. El Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras va dotado con cinco millones de pesetas y una escultura de Joan Miró. Entre la obra publicada de Nieva figuran las siguientes obras: Tórtolas, crepúsculo y telón, El combate de Opalos y Tasia, Es bueno no tener cabeza, El fandango asombroso, El rayo colgado y peste de loco amor, El baile de los ardientes, El paño de injurias, Sombra y quimera de Larra, La carroza de plomo candente, y La señora tártara. Cuenta además con varias obras inéditas, entre ellas, La Pascua Negra, El maravilloso catarro de Lord Bashaville, Funeral y pasacalle y Los españoles bajo tierra. Esta es la primera vez en sus doce años de existencia que el Príncipe de Asturias de las letras se concede a un autor teatral. [El País, 1 de junio de 1992]

Quedaron galardonados los siguientes artistas, autores e intelectuales con el Premio Nacional de 1992, concedido por el Ministerio de Cultura: Basilio Fernández (Poesía), Antonio Muñoz Molina (Narrativa), Francisco Nieva (Teatro), Miguel Artola (Historia), Emilio Lledó (Ensayo), Carmelo Bernaola (Composición), Joaquín Achúcarro (Interpretación), Mario Maya (Danza) y Esther Benítez (Traducción). Con la excepción del premio de Poesía la concesión

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de los premios deparó pocas sorpresas. El de Poesía recayó a título póstumo en Basilio Fernández, poeta relativamente desconocido, nacido en León en 1909 y fallecido en Gijón en 1987, cuya única obra se publicó por iniciativa de su sobrino Emiliano Fernández Prado. El dramaturgo Francisco Nieva, recientemente galardonado con el Premio Príncipe de Asturias, obtuvo el National de Literatura en modalidad de Teatro por su obra Manuscrito encontrado en Zaragoza. El de Literatura en modalidad de Narrativa le fue concedido a Antonio Muñoz Molina por El jinete polaco. Miguel Artola, presidente del Instituto de España, académico de la Historia y Premio Príncipe de Asturias de Ciencias Sociales de 1991, recibió el Nacional de Historia por la coordinación de la Enciclopedia de historia de España, y especialmente por el Diccionario biográfico y el Diccionario temático. Se destaca entre su obra voluminosa Los orígenes de la España contemporánea. Uno de los filósofos actuales más influyentes, Emilio Lledó, fue galardonado con el Premio Nacional de Ensayo por El silencio de la escritura. El compositor y pedagogo Carmelo Bernaola, de 62 años, y el pianista Joaquín Achúcarro, de 55 años, obtuvieron los premios nacionales de Música, en composición e interpretación respectivamente. El de Danza le fue concedido al bailador flamenco Mario Maya, de Córdoba. Esther Benítez obtuvo el galardón de Traducción por el conjunto de su obra. [El País, 8 de junio de 1992]

Tras siete votaciones resultó el martes 9 de junio recipiente del Premio de las Letras Españolas, dotado con cinco millones de pesetas, el místico castellano José Jiménez Lozano (Langa, Ávila, 1930). Subdirector del periódico El Norte de Castilla de Valladolid, Jiménez Lozano ha sido premio de la crítica como autor de una obra que supera veinticinco volúmenes. Entre su obra voluminosa destacan las novelas La salamandra, Duelo en la casa grande o El sambenito y cuentos como Meditación española sobre la libertad religiosa, La ronquera de Fray Luis y Los ojos del icono. Es además autor del libro Guía espiritual de Castilla. El nombre de Jiménez Lozano no figuraba entre los de los primeros candidatos del premio. Su nombre y los de otros cuatro se añadieron durante el debate del jurado. El jurado fue compuesto del dramaturgo Antonio Buero Vallejo; Francisco Rico, miembro de la Real Academia Española; Domingo García Sabell, miembro de la Real Academia Gallega; Enrique Kmorr, miembro de la Real Academia de la Lengua Vasca; y otras personalidades destacadas del mundo de la cultura española. [El País, 10 de junio de 1992]

El escritor mexicano Carlos Fuentes ganó el jueves 11 de junio el Premio Internacional Menéndez Pelayo que otorga cada año la Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo (Santander) para distinguir a las personalidades más destacadas en el ámbito de la creación literaria, artística o científica. Este año el jurado contó con un total de 17 candidatos entre los cuales figuraron el escritor peruano Mario Vargas Llosa, el argentino Ernesto Sábato y el académico Julián Marías. En la primera edición del Premio Internacional Menéndez Pelayo -siendo la actual la sexta- fue galardonado otro escritor mexicano, Octavio Paz. El premio va dotado con cinco millones de pesetas. [El País, 12 de junio de 1992]

John P. Gabriele
College of Wooster

The Oscar Fernández scholarship Award provides a grant of $500 to encourage the decision and to facilitate the continuance of the education from the secondary level to college of a needy student interested in pursuing studies in Spanish and/or Portuguese or in fields related to them.

The Award is not to be considered principally as a reward for, or as an indication of, past or possible future top scholarship, but the recipient must be judged to be sufficiently competent and with the proper personal and study habits to carry out successfully programs at the University of Iowa. Although it is not limited to Hispanics, it is hoped that students with such a background will be among those interested and will apply. Among the qualities to be considered in making the selection will be the following: the candidate must have demonstrated a true dedication to academic studies, a positive attitude and an orderly manner in resolving difficulties and problems; an ability to make friends easily, while following an approach leading to personal satisfaction; and to the appreciation of others.

Application forms and further information may be obtained by writing to the O. Fernández Scholarship Committee, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, the University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242.

The Award is made possible by a grant from Professor and Mrs. Oscar Fernández. Professor Fernández had teaching and administrative duties at Washington University, the University of Wisconsin, the United States Naval Academy, and New York University. He was the first chair of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at The University of Iowa, Iowa City, 1967-1975. He retired in 1986.

Contributions, tax free, may be made to the Oscar Fernández Scholarship Fund, c/o The University of Iowa Foundation, Alumni Center, Iowa City, Iowa 52242.

Entrevista con Ángeles Mastretta. Autora mexicana de Arráncame la vida (Premio Mazatlán 1985) y Mujeres de ojos grandes (1990). Ciudad de México,

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6 y 8 de marzo, 1991. Ángeles Mastretta (1949) llegó a la atención del público mexicano con la publicación de su primera novela, Arráncame la vida, que en este momento ha sido traducida a catorce idiomas. Su destreza artística con la palabra escrita, tan obvia en su primera obra, se confirma en su segundo esfuerzo, una serie de cuarenta cuentos brevísimos con el vínculo de que cada protagonista además de ser una tía familiar es una mujer que ha realizado algún grado de independencia en un momento decisivo en su vida.

MM: Cuando terminaste Arráncamela vida, ¿tuviste confianza en lo que hiciste?

AM: Nunca tengo confianza en lo que hago. Me sorprendió que a la gente le gustara la obra porque tenía muchas dudas mientras la estaba escribiendo. Me cuesta mucho trabajo creerme las cosas. Pero me divertía también. Estaba embarazada con mi segunda hija; creo que el embarazo es una de las condiciones ideales para estar quieta porque ya el trabajo lo llevas por dentro, ya estás haciendo una cosa útil y lo demás que hagas no te importa...

MM: ¿De dónde salió la idea para Arráncame la vida, esta historia de Catalina Guzmán, una mujer de las épocas de los treinta y los cuarenta que desde el principio lleva por dentro las semillas de rebeldía contra el sistema patriarcal?

AM: Lo que me pasó a mí es que tenía esta historia pendiente. Esta es una historia que oí toda mi vida, no así contada. Catalina Guzmán es invención mía, pero la historia de Andrés Ascencio, la historia de que había habido un gobernador así de implacable, de loco. Y mis abuelos y luego mis padres padecieron de este régimen, vivieron en ese tono. Cuando yo nací, mi papá decía que eran siete años que estaba muerto este gobernador; y sin embargo, los modos de vida eran iguales. Entonces yo creo que cuando yo... yo crecía oyendo historias de este gobernador, sus impunidades, o las cosas inventadas, porque además no estaba cierto; había muchas cosas que no eran ciertas, pero además era una historia que... [todo se decía en secreto], de la que no se hablaba en público, que a la gente le agitaba mucho cuando se hablaba de esto. En mi familia [había una rabia cuando se hablaba de esto], pero no era una molestia expresada públicamente; nunca había críticas públicas de este régimen. En casi todas las casas [de Puebla] había una crítica ... continua de este hombre, pero nadie nunca le enfrentaron.

MM: ¿Cuándo fue la primera vez que se te ocurrió la idea firme de escribir Arráncarme la vida?

AM: Mucho después, cuando yo finalmente descubrí que lo único que sabía hacer fue escribir. Yo estudié periodismo en la Universidad Nacional de México. Yo me había ido de Puebla a México a los veinte años. Entonces trabajé en el periodismo muchos años, como siete años antes de escribir Arráncame la vida.

MM: ¿Para qué publicaciones escribías?

AM: Excelsior, primero [y unas dos otras]. Pero en un momento tenía ganas de escribir una novela, de probarme como escritora, y entonces quería escribir esta historia sobre los hombres poderosos de la ciudad de Puebla en los años cuarenta porque varios hombres fueron poderosos y marcaron el destino del país, no nada más éste [el gobernador]. Eran como cinco: uno era banquero, que fue el dueño del principal banco de México; otro que fue dueño del principal periódico; eran cinco poderosos, y yo quería contar la historia de estos cinco, pero me di cuenta de que no era posible. Entonces me dije que voy a contar la historia del que los [dirigió], el que estaba detrás de todo. Ese fue el primer impulso. Y entonces le inventé una mujer porque yo sabía que era mujeriego, y que estaba casado con una mujer, pero esta mujer no era Catalina Ascencio.

MM: ¿Fue algo que te vino como un afán?

AM: No, no lo creas. Me costaba mucho trabajo. Y la primera cosa que escribí fue la iniciación sexual de Catalina [a manos de Andrés]. Y después la segunda cosa que escribí fue el discurso que ella le hace cuando [Andrés] está muerto, [diciendo cómo ella va a vivir ahora]. Lo tercero que escribí fue de ellos. Terminé [la obra] en un año.

MM: ¿Te costó mucho emplear las palabrotas o el lenguaje tabú que normalmente se atribuyen a los autores masculinos?

AM: Lo que me pasó es que todo viene por la boca de Catalina; es una campesina que se alió con un militar.¿Cómo hablaba esta mujer? No estaba hablando con nadie; la historia que está contando es para sí misma. No me costó ningún trabajo acceder a la prosa libre y rápida, y a las palabrotas porque en este momento yo era muy amiga de un gran poeta mexicano que se llamaba Renato Leduc, que era un viejo maravilloso; tenía ochenta y cinco años; éramos amigos entrañables, y ése no podía decir simplemente «Buenos días» sin intercalar «Buenos chingados días». Todo el tiempo hablaba así, pero todo el tiempo. Era imposible para él. Este hombre era igualito a Andrés, pero muy simpático. Fue un hombre que vivió la Revolución. Yo comía con él todas las semanas y conversábamos toda la tarde, y entonces yo empezaba a preguntarle por esas épocas. Oye, ¿cómo era Fulano? Y tenía una mujer. ¿Y cómo era esta mujer? Y muchas de las cosas eran inventadas por él. Pero, sobre todo, el tono verbal para mí era muy fácil; era como reproducir a Renato. Cuando se murió yo perdí esa facilidad verbal. Pero ese tono no me costó ningún trabajo. Lo que me costó mucho trabajo, en cambio, fue quitarme largos párrafos cursis. Todas las descripciones que ella hacía de sus amores con Carlos Vives eran muy cursis. Entonces yo me tuve que dar cuenta de que esta mujer no podía hablar así. Cada vez que yo quería que ella estuviera muy enamorada, yo me decía que era imposible. Entonces quité mucho, incluso los párrafos más bonitos porque no iban en el tono del libro, en el tono de la mujer. Es un libro de doscientas páginas. Yo escribí cuatrocientas. Quité mucho. Yo habría seguido escribiendo. El libro acaba en [donde Catalina se siente] «divertida» ... «casi feliz». Y yo habría seguido escribiendo como cuatro capítulos más. Y de pronto me detuve; dije, «Esto se

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acabó». En alguna parte de este libro esto se acabó, y no puede continuar porque no voy a saber cómo.

MM: ¿Pensaste en escribir una segunda parte?

AM: No, nunca. Es que no pude. Me di cuenta de que no pude aunque me habría ganado buen dinero con una segunda parte.

MM: ¿Cuánto tiempo pasó entre el llevar a cabo Arráncame la vida y el emprender de Mujeres de ojos grandes?

AM: A lo mejor pasaron tres o cuatro meses. Cuando nació Catalina, mi hija, estuvo muy grave como a las tres semanas; se estaba muriendo. Entonces yo no tenía nada que hablarle. Y para entretenerme empezaba a acordarme más o menos con orden de algunas de mis tías, como eran cinco tías, y empecé a [pensar en] las historias de mis tías. Y cuando se alivió la niña, me dije que voy a hacer un libro contándole las historias de mis tías cuando estaban grandotas. Y eso creía que sería muy fácil. Pero eso resultó dificilísimo porque me tuve que inventar cuarenta mujeres... distintas... tomadas en instantes cruciales de sus vidas... inventado tantos datos de personajes distintas, y tantas situaciones tan distintas, y luego además de la historia se exige un redondo. Son historias de tres páginas o de cinco, o de una... Y todo esto fue un proceso de más de dos años porque no escribía yo, no podía escribir... por el éxito de Arráncame la vida, porque... tenía entrevistas, conferencias, viajes... eso me quitó todo el tiempo. Y luego un niño de dos años y una niña de tres meses, y también eso me quitó el tiempo. No dormía nada.

MM: ¿Sufrías durante aquella época, no pudiendo escribir?

AM: Sí. Trabajaba en televisión y trabajaba en radio; tenía un trabajo de conversaciones y entrevistas... extenuantes, cansadísimo... todos los días en la televisión es muy cansado.

MM: Y cuando escribes, ¿escribes todos los días cuando tienes un proyecto?

AM: Exacto. Publiqué Arráncame la vida en 1985. En ochenta y seis escribí cinco o seis historias, o sea que tenía más o menos el tono. Y luego lo dejé. Cuando lo retomé fue en ochenta y ocho, y entonces yo trabajé un año entero.

MM: ¿Prefieres escribir por las mañanas o por la noche?

AM: Yo prefería escribir por la noche, pero escribo por las mañanas porque no me queda más remedio. Yo era nocturna, pero me volví diurna... porque yo era de relajo y me levantaba tarde, a las ocho y media o a las nueve; pero con los niños me tuve que volver tempranera y tuve que trabajar en el día; pues tengo que trabajar cuando estén en el colegio. Entonces las nueve tengo que estar en la máquina, y estoy de nueve a tres.

MM: ¿Empiezas a escribir tus ideas a mano?

AM: No. Empiezo a escribir todo a máquina.

MM: Y al acostarte, ¿puedes olvidarte de tu trabajo o te siguen ideas acerca de tus personajes?

AM: Depende. Sí, depende. Este libro fue muy distinto [Mujeres de ojos grandes] de éste [Arráncame la vida]. Con éste trabajaba para tranquilizarme porque este libro [yo] lo tomaba o lo dejaba. Eso era muy cansado. [En cuanto a Mujeres...] en un día o en dos escribí unas historias. Pero en cambio con Arráncame la vida si faltaban unos quince días sin escribirlo, tenía que volver a recorrer toda la situación; entonces yo me despertaba y tenía que seguir por pura curiosidad. Bueno, a ver: ¿Dónde lo pongo? ¿Qué hago? ¿Qué dice? Es mucho más fácil escribir una novela. No voy a volver a escribir cuentos nunca en mi vida.

MM: ¿Qué autores influyeron más en ti?

AM: Durante mis años universitarios yo fui una lectora implacable de todo lo que se leía en el mundo latinoamericano. Fuentes. Por supuesto, García Márquez, que yo creo que sobre mí pesa mucho. Además soy una lectora fanática de los autores del siglo diecinueve. Entonces soy muy lectora de Stendhal. Creo que Stendhal es el que más me gusta, lo cual creo es una barbaridad porque Flaubert es mucho más detallista. Sin embargo, a mí Stendhal me dice muchas cosas.

MM: Y, ¿en cuanto al uso de una computadora en tu trabajo...?

AM: Traté de usar una computadora con Mujeres..., y tenía como tres historias, pero [todo] se me desapareció, y como no las escribí a mano, me olvidé, no las pude volver a ver. Y las perdí. Pues yo ahora voy a escribir a máquina primero para tener mi copia y luego la escribo en la computadora sólo para que me quede en limpio. Pues, García Márquez escribió a computadora El general en su laberinto y El amor en los tiempos del cólera. Sí, es que se puede corregir mucho más porque la computadora más te envicia. Claro, el estilo [está] enviciado porque [hay] cosas en la máquina que dejarías de hacer... por cansancio... En la computadora puedes cambiar el adjetivo, el adverbio que se te pegue, jugando.

MM: ¿Reciben más atención los autores masculinos que las escritoras femeninas?

AM: No, para nada. Yo no creo eso. No puedo generalizar por toda Latinoamérica, pero yo creo que aquí en México ahora las mujeres estamos recibiendo una atención que yo incluso creo excesiva. Es que si una mujer publica un libro la gente aquí en México lo compra porque es una mujer -no porque es bueno o porque es malo, o porque es inteligente o porque es buena literatura sino porque lo escribió una mujer. Esto [a mí me parece] machismo al revés. Y las editoriales buscan a las mujeres. ¿Dónde hay una escritora porque la queremos publicar?

MM: ¿Qué autoras latinas son tus preferidas?

AM: Yo creo que mi autora preferida sigue siendo Elena Poniatowska. Creo que es una excelente escritora. Es más; creo que es un excelente escritor... Tiene una capacidad para conmover; te conduce, te lleva adonde quieres ir y no sabes cómo llegaste hasta allí. [En cuanto a Rosario Castellanos] me gusta su poesía más que la prosa. Y Elena Garro es una buenísima escritora.

MM: Volviendo a la historia de Arráncame la vida queda la cuestión al final si Catalina va a ser completamente

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feliz cuando ella dice que se encontró «casi feliz».

AM: Claro, lo cual quiere decir que es inteligente porque nadie es completamente feliz. ...Es que nadie que se aprecie de ser inteligente puede ser completamente feliz.

MM: Catalina es una mujer muy fuerte y quizás representa el sueño o el ideal de lo que quiere ser una mujer.

AM: Yo creo que sí. Ella... desde el principio, en la cabeza de ella, él [Andrés] no manda nunca de todo; ella nunca estuvo perfectamente entregada a ese [tipo]; tenía su clarísima reserva. Claro, a partir de esta primera reserva la fue creciendo, la aumentó, la hizo inteligente, la verbalizó.

MM: Y en Puebla, una chica como Catalina, ¿cómo aprendía de asuntos sexuales?

AM: No aprendían. De todas las más trágicas y las más pésimas experiencias sexuales sufrían muy mal. Por eso, digo que esta mujer [Catalina] es muy rara; es anacrónica.

MM: La relación que Catalina tenía con su papá era relación muy cariñosa. ¿Fue esto algo en tu propia experiencia?

AM: Yo creo que sí. Mi papá murió cuando yo tenía diecinueve años, y yo tenía una intensa relación con él. Yo lo quería muchísimo; éramos muy buenos amigos. Yo lo extraño mucho. En Mujeres de ojos grandes todos los papás de las protagonistas son muy cercanos. ...¿Qué piensas de Carlos Vives? Es el sueño perfecto de una mujer. Es una fantasía... para... Catalina.

MM: Ese día cuando Andrés sorprendió a Catalina, trayendo a casa a dos de sus hijos ilegítimos, y ella los aceptó sin decir nada, pues ¿habría hecho eso una mujer típicamente mexicana de aquella época?

AM: Creo que habría hecho eso aunque había muy pocos hombres que lo hacían. Muchos hombres, que tienen este lujo de tener hijos fuera del matrimonio, los mantienen aparte. Esto de reconocerlos y traerlos fue una locura de él [Andrés].

MM: ¿Cómo ves ahora el futuro de la escritora mexicana o de la escritora latina, por lo común? ¿Tendrá una voz más escuchada?

AM: Fíjate que no sé. Pero lo que pasa en estas cosas es que yo soy muy metiche -en todo quieres estar, todo quieres saber, todo quieres ver- bueno, pero sobre todo era porque ahora estoy adquiriendo una sabiduría que viene de los cuarenta, de cuando cumplido esto para acá, la que me ha llevado a decir «No, yo de esto no opino porque no sé». Entonces la verdad es que yo no sé. Te voy a decir que sí, creo que en la literatura latinoamericana vamos a tener muchos triunfos, mucho futuro, pero es que no tengo la menor idea que va a ser la literatura mexicana. Con trabajo quiero dar una idea de que va a ser mía.

Michael B. Miller
Gallaudet University

Angélica Gorodischer, escritora argentina. Angélica Gorodischer es una de las escritoras argentinas contemporáneas reconocidas por lector y crítica. Sus cuentos han sido traducidos a varios idiomas y publicados en la Argentina y el extranjero. Ha presidido jornadas literarias en la Argentina y el extranjero, dado conferencias en diversos seminarios en Bruselas, México, Estados Unidos, Colombia.

Entre los años 1964 y 1986 ha recibido más de siete premios y distinciones. Entre los premios recibidos podemos mencionar la beca Fullbright, de los años 1988 y 1991. Varios de sus cuentos cortos han aparecido en diversas antologías, no sólo de la Argentina sino del extranjero, (Suecia, Alemania, Canadá, y hasta el momento tiene publicados once libros. Entre su obra publicada mencionaremos: Bajo Las Jubeas en Flor del año 1973; Casta Luna Electrónica, del año 1977; Trafalgar de 1984; Kalpa Imperial I y II de 1983-1984 respectivamente (esta novela aparecerá en el futuro en una nueva edición española y en un sólo tomo); Floreros de Alabastro, Alfombras de Bokhara, 1985; Jugo de Mango, 1988; y por aparecer Ordenamiento de lo que es y Canon de las apariencias, el que según la autora es «ese texto que aparece y desaparece que se escribe y se reescribe durante gran parte de todos mis cuentos».

«Me preguntas cómo definiría mi estilo... mira, no sé, quizá me dejé llevar por mi gusto por lo desmesurado, lo monstruoso, por los extremos. Yo tengo el convencimiento que la vida es fantástica. Entonces quizás esa mezcla de fantástico y real es lo que a mí me atrae. Fue así que un buen día me encontré escribiendo cf. Pero ojo, que yo no sé qué es la cf. No podría definirla. Tampoco podría decirte la diferencia entre literatura realista y literatura fantástica, porque si yo creo los personajes, es fantasía, y si los hago actuar en el medio que todos nos movemos es realidad, y entonces ¿qué? Y aquí aparece otra cuestión, mucha gente opina que la cf no es literatura, y bueno, pero hay que leer y escoger, hay entretenimiento y hay literatura como la escrita por Ursula Le Guin en Estados Unidos o Natalie Hennenberg en Francia, para mencionar algunos escritores del género».

Basta con leer En verano, a la siesta y con Martina, que según Angélica «más que un cuento policial es un juguete con el pretexto de un crimen», o Bajo las Jubeas en Flor, en el cual nos sorprende con un desenlace de justicia tipo Kafka, para comprender lo expuesto anteriormente por la autora. Otro ejemplo, sería Casta Luna Electrónica, obra que pertenece al género fantástico y tiene también rasgos de ciencia ficción, creando así un estilo narrativo muy particular, al introducir el elemento fantástico en la narración (galaxias, planetas) y la mezcla con lo verosímil del entorno cotidiano (el mozo, las bebidas, las mesas, el amigo).

Durante esta visita a los Estados Unidos y de sus impresiones nos habla ahora la autora de Trafalgar, una serie de cuentos en los que Trafalgar Medrano resulta ser un personaje muy especial.

-En tu primera visita a los Estados Unidos con la beca Fullbright estuviste en Iowa City, Iowa, ¿verdad?

«Sí, y me cambió la vida (y la escritura) como a tanta otra gente. Esta es la segunda y no creo que me vaya a cambiar la vida ni la escritura porque la escritura de una cambia con las cosas más inesperadas, pero esto es algo completamente distinto. Acá (University of Northern Colorado) estoy dando dos cursos uno en inglés y el otro en castellano. Doy uno sobre Cultura General y otro sobre Escritoras de América Latina, toco a Armonía Sommers, Hebe Uhart, Elisa Mujica, Clarice Linspector y hablamos también de María Eugenia Vaz Ferreira, Diamela Eltit, Alfonsina Storni, Margo Glantz, Griselda Gámbaro, Alicia Steinberg.

Me han invitado a hablar además en otras universidades y así estuve en Wellesley donde conozco a Marjorie Agosín, poetisa chilena radicada acá, y casada con un norteamericano, lo pasé muy bien; las alumnas, todas mujeres, son brillantes. Me impresionó el interés de la gente sobre el tema del que hablé. De ahí fui a The College of William and Mary en donde hablé de «La imagen de la mujer en la literatura argentina». La gente encantadora, George Greenia, Tachi Robledo, Howard Fraser, amabilísimos. Las profesoras jóvenes muy interesadas en el tema y muy inteligentes. Bueno, de ahí fui a West Chester, invitada por Celia Esplugas, profesora argentina radicada hace muchísimo en los Estados Unidos. Además me invitaron a la Universidad de Lincoln, Nebraska. De allí me dirigí a Madison, donde conozco a Xenja Bilbija, quien estaba en el Departamento de Traducción en Iowa en 1988. Allí hablé en el Departamento de Español donde hay también gente de lo más interesante. Después a Vermilion, en South Dakota, donde di una conferencia sobre «Escritoras Latinoamericanas». Finalmente a Gunnison, donde el tema fue nuevamente sobre «La imagen de la mujer en la Literatura Argentina». Quiero agregar que todo fue muy bien organizado, que la atención recibida en la Universidad de Northern Colorado es magnífica. La gente es muy amable, me emociona mucho el genuino calor de todos. Estoy realmente satisfecha de haber hecho nuevas amistades y de haber tenido la oportunidad de encontrarme con viejos amigos».

-Bueno, vemos que has estado muy ocupada, pero al mismo tiempo que has encontrado audiencia interesada e interesante, ¿verdad?

«Pues, como te dije anteriormente, creo, me voy muy satisfecha de todo y todos. Estos meses han pasado rapidísimo, y a pesar de que quiero volver, también me gustaría quedarme... complicado ¿no?»

-¿Cuáles son tus planes al terminar el semestre?

«Me iré a Barcelona a pasar las fiestas con mis hijos y a presidir un congreso europeo sobre Narrativa Fantástica, y luego a París al Congreso de Escritoras Latinoamericanas. Y después, de regreso a Rosario a fines de enero.

Y así damos por terminada esta entrevista con Angélica Gorodischer, quien en su estadía ha deleitado a estudiantes y profesores de varias universidades con una fresca y realista versión sobre la narrativa Latinoamericana en general y la imagen de la mujer en la literatura argentina.

Gustavo Fares-Eliana Hermann
Lynchburg College

Hispania [Publicaciones periódicas]. Volume 75, Number 5, December 1992