Each year, Carleton College’s Latin American Studies Program hosts its Foro Latinoamericano, at which distinguished speakers and artists come together to discuss important themes in Latin American studies. This year’s Foro, taking place April 14 through 16 and entitled “Cuban Culture After the Fall of the Berlin Wall,” will focus on the cultural and artistic transformations that have taken place in Cuba in the 20 years since the end of the Cold War. A complete listing of related events can be found online at www.carleton.edu/calendar/. Carleton College’s annual Foro Latinoamericano is free and open to the public.
After 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall, the geopolitical map of the world changed drastically. While the effects of the collapse of the Soviet Union may have been most apparent in Europe, they were also of immense significance in Latin America, a region which for many years had been the site of contests between the US and USSR. For Cuba, the only Communist nation in the Western hemisphere, these events were of particular importance.
One of the major speakers at the Foro Latinoamericano will be the Cuban novelist José Manuel Prieto, who will give a talk entitled “The Art of Writing Between Cultures and Dialogue in the Russian Trilogy Novels.” Prieto was born in Havana, Cuba, and lived for 12 years in Russia. His time in the former Soviet Union – both before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall – heavily influenced his writing, in which his characters attempt to navigate a world in which borders and nations dissolve, frontiers are in constant flux, and new identities are created.
Prieto is the author of non-fiction, essays, and a number of novels, including Nocturnal Butterflies of the Russian Empire (Grove Press, 2000), Enciclopedia de una vida en Rusia (Mondadori, 2003), and Rex (2009). "The Hartford Courant" compared his writing to Nabakov and Saul Bellow, while Christ Kridler of "The Baltimore Sun" described the English translation of Nocturnal Butterflies as “beautiful, lavish, seedy, poetic, and magical.” His most recent novel was published simultaneously in English, German, and French along with his native Spanish. In addition to his own writing, Prieto also works as a Spanish-Russian translator, rendering the works of Joseph Brodsky and Anna Akhmatova in Spanish. He now works as a professor of Russian history in Mexico City.
Other notable participants in the Foro Latinoamericano are Denys Matos, a Cuban-born art critic, curator, and essayist who currently resides in Madrid; Madeline Cámara Betancourt, a Cuban-born professor at the University of South Florida, an expert in the field of Cuban studies, and the author of several books about Cuban woman writers; and Ignacio “Nachito” Herrera, a noted Cuban fusion musician.
This event is sponsored by Carleton College Department of Latin American Studies. A full schedule of events at the Foro Latinoamericano can be found on the Events page of the Carleton website at www.carleton.edu/calendar/. For further information and disability accommodations, contact Mary Tatge at mtatge@carleton.edu.