Come see one of Latin America's greatest living poets, Raúl Zurita!

Tuesday, April 16, 2024 4:30 PM to 6:00 PM EDT
Art & Design Building, Gillespie Gallery, First floor

Join the Alan Cheuse International Writers Center, Department of Creative Writing, Mason Exhibitions, The Latin American Political Society and Modern and Classical Languages, for a Poetry Reading featuring Chilean writer Raúl Zurita and his translator Anna Deeny. 

Mason Professor Vivek Narayanan will be moderating this event, set against the backdrop of the exhibition 'Faces & Figures: Identity Through Printmaking in South Africa'.

The Art and Design Building is building #3 on the campus map. Paid visitor parking is available at the Shenandoah Parking Deck.

Raúl Zurita’s Purgatory, a landmark in contemporary Latin American poetry, records the physical, cultural, and spiritual violence perpetrated against the Chilean people under Pinochet’s military dictatorship (1973–1990) in the fiercely inventive voice of a postmodern master. This beautiful en face edition, superbly translated by Anna Deeny, brings to English-language readers an indispensable volume written by one of the most important living poets writing in Spanish today. Zurita was a 24-year-old student in Valparaíso when, on the morning of the coup, he was arrested, detained, and tortured. Conceived as the first text of a Dantean trilogy that includes Anteparaíso (Anteparadise) and La Vida Nueva (The New Life), Purgatory is his anguished response to Chile’s violent recent history.

A reception to follow. This is a co-sponsored event across departments. 

Sponsored by The Cheuse Center, Mason Exhibitions, LAPS, GMU -Creative Writing, GMU -MCL.