Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs
CLACS

CLACS Reading Group | Fuera de Lugar | "Avidez" by Lina Meruane

Fuera-de-Lugar: 21st Century Latin American Short Stories: Lina Meruane

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

11:15 a.m. - 12:45 p.m.

Rochambeau House Library
84 Prospect St.

About the Reading Group
The CLACS Reading Group, “Fuera-de-Lugar: 21st Century Latin American Short Stories,” invites you to join our second meeting. We will delve into the works of Chilean author Lina Meruane, focusing specifically on her latest collection of short stories, Avidez (Madrid: Páginas de espuma, 2023). Meruane’s exploration of avidity, desire, ambition, and greed unfolds through a diverse array of characters, including insatiable mothers and daughters, sisters, friends, lovers, and even wild men and animals whose hunger fuels emotions such as love, hatred, misery, punishment, resentment, and forgiveness. Within the obsessive universe of these characters, objects take on their own lives, bodies undergo mutilation, and relationships fracture.

We invite you to join us to discuss Meruane’s Avidez, featuring her publisher, Juan Casamayor, from the independent publishing house Páginas de espuma, as our special guest. 

About the Text
Lina Meruane’s body of fiction includes the stories compiled in Las Infantas and five novels - Póstuma, Cercada, Fruta podrida, Sangre en el ojo, and Sistema nervioso - translated into twelve languages. Among her non-fiction books are the essays “Viajes virales” and “Zona ciega,” as well as the personal essay “Palestina en pedazos” (an expanded version of her previous work Volverse Palestina), the lyrical essay “Palestina por ejemplo,” and the diatribe “Contra los hijos.” Ensayo general, meanwhile, compiles her shorter essayistic texts. She has ventured into playwriting with a theatrical adaptation, Un lugar donde caerse muerta, and a dramatic work, Esa cosa animal. She has received the Premio Iberoamericano de Letras José Donoso 2023, the Metropolis Azul Award (Canada 2023), the Cálamo Award (Spain 2016), the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Award (Mexico 2012), the Anna Seghers Award (Berlin 2011), and writing fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation (USA 2004), the NEA (USA 2010), the DAAD (Germany 2017), and Casa Cien Años de Soledad (Mexico 2021), among others. She teaches Latin American Cultures, Arts, and Cultures at New York University. Her scholarly work focuses on Disease Studies, Gender Studies & Feminisms, Arabic Migration to Latin America, Creative Writing (Fiction & Non Fiction).