Cuban writer, journalist and screenwriter Leonardo Padura will visit Alicante next month in March, invited by the Mario Benedetti Center for Ibero-American Literary Studies at the University of Alicante. He will be the central figure of the new Center programming from February to May, presented by its director Beatriz Aracil. Among the fourteen suggested names are Denise Despeyroux, Piedad Bonnett, Daniela Tarazona and Enrique Viciano.
Padura is the author of Man Who Loves Dogs. He has received the Cuban National Literature Award in 2012 and the Princess of Asturias Literary Award in 2015. His visit to CeMaB marks a first encounter with the center, and Aracil describes Padura as a luxury presence for contemporary Latin American literature. The writer is known for maintaining a long tradition of intellectuals who engage with their environment through works that reflect and critique the society in which they live.
Padura, renowned for his police novels featuring the detective Mario Conde, will present two public conferences on March 21 and 22. The first event on the 21st will take place at 19:00 at the Alicante City Headquarters of UA on San Fernando Street, and will address Censorship, Self-Censorship, and the Light of Our Age. The second conference on March 22 at 12:00 in CeMaB will be titled A Creator Introduces Us to His World: Man and Writer. This session continues a seminar lineage dating back to 1994 when Mario Benedetti served as guest author; Aracil noted that the guest would share his personal perspective on writing and literature.
Benedetti’s literary commentary is publicly available
CeMaB’s director outlined plans for digitizing notes from Benedetti’s books, creating a database with newspaper clippings that illuminate his contributions to Latin American intellectual life. Several folders dedicated to figures like Mario Vargas Llosa, Gabriel García Márquez, and Carlos Fuentes will be added to the Mario Benedetti collection at CeMaB, enriching the scholarly resources available to researchers and students.
Programming
CeMaB’s program commences with a Thursday evening presentation of the book Lethe’s Dream by essayist, poet and educator Vicente Cervera. The Alicante City Headquarters on San Fernando hosts this event at 19:00, with colleagues Carmen Germany from UA and Joaquin Juan Penalva from UMH in attendance.
The Spanish-Uruguayan playwright will participate in the writers’ meetings section of the program. Denise Despeyroux, a Colombian poet and novelist, along with Denise Bonnett, a celebrated writer, and Daniela Tarazona, a Mexican screenwriter, director and producer, will also take part, joined by Enrique Viciano. Despeyroux will participate February 29 with the conference Weatherproofing and Commitment, a joint event with the UA Master’s Program in Literary Studies and the Immigrant Writers series opened by Paloma Chen.
On March 14 at 10:00, the poet and novelist Piedad Bonnett from Colombia will discuss mourning literature ten years after the influential book The Thing That Has No Name, reflecting on the author’s exploration of grief and loss following the death of her son. Beatriz Aracil noted that these discussions arise amid conversations about youth suicide. On March 25 CeMaB will host a midday session with Spanish screenwriter, director and filmmaker Enrique Viciano along with filmmaker José Martí, exploring homeland, suffering and duty. Mexican writer Daniela Tarazona will close the Immigrant Writers cycle with a talk on May 9 about writing to leave, detailing the experiences of a Mexican writer in the Spanish-speaking world.
Researchers and academics
CeMaB’s offerings also feature lectures by renowned scholars. Robin Lefere, a professor at the University of Brussels and a Borges expert, will present Borges, a devotee of Unamuno on March 6 at 15:30. Carlos Alberto Perez Garay of the Ricardo Palma University in Lima will discuss Peruvian and Spanish-American independence through narrative and historical novels spanning the 19th to the 21st centuries on March 11 at 10:00. Carmen Márquez of the University of Las Palmas and Cesar Oliva of the University of Murcia will host a dialogue on Current Spanish Theater as part of the cycle Find Yourself in the Word on March 12 at 17:30. Agustín Prado of the National University of Peru will speak about Mercedes Cabello de Carbonera and her essays and novels on May 13 at 10:00, shining a light on one of the 19th century’s great Latin American novelists.
Other activities
Programming concludes with the II Conference on Theater Teaching and Research at UA, organized with the Department of Catalan Philology and the vice-rectors for Research, Culture, Sports and University Extension on March 12. A session with David Desmas from the University of Toulouse on Fragmentary Writing in Contemporary Latin American Narrative will take place on April 15 and 17 in collaboration with the Master in Literary Studies. An online day focusing on Mexican children’s poetry in the classroom will be held on May 2 and 3, organized with the UA Department of Innovation and Didactic Education in cooperation with the National Autonomous University of Mexico.