Author Eduardo Lalo discussing his work, “Simone” | December 1, 2015
Tuesday, December 1, 2015 | 4:30pm
CRES Talks presents Eduardo Lalo discussing his work, Simone
Eduardo Lalo, described as “one of the most vital and unique voices of Latin American literature" discusses his most celebrated novel to date, Simone, winner of the 2013 Rómulo Gallegos International Novel Prize. Join us we celebrate the recent translation of this novel from Spanish to English by David Frye and re-publication by the University of Chicago Press.
A tale of alienation, love, suspense, imagination, and literature set on the streets of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Simone tells the story of a self-educated Chinese immigrant student courting (and stalking) a disillusioned, unnamed writer who is struggling to make a name for himself in a place that is not exactly a hotbed of literary fame. By turns solipsistic and political, romantic and dark, Simone begins with the writer’s frustrated, satiric observations on his native city and the banal life of the university where he teaches—forces utterly at odds with the sensuality of his writing. But, as mysterious messages and literary clues begin to appear—scrawled on sidewalks and walls, inside volumes set out in bookstores, left on his answering machine and under his windshield wiper—Simone progresses into a cat-and-mouse game between the writer and his mystery stalker. When the eponymous Simone’s identity is at last revealed, the writer finds in the life of this Chinese immigrant a plight not unlike his own. Traumatized and lonely, the pair moves towards bittersweet collaborations in passion, grief, and art.
Eduardo Lalo is a writer, essayist, video artist, and photographer from Puerto Rico. He is an author of ten Spanish-language books, including La Inutilidad, Los Paises Invisibles, and, most recently, El Deseo del Lapiz.
Part of the CRES Talks series at the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture, with support from the Karla Scherer Center for the Study of American Culture, Center for Latin American Studies, Program in Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Studies in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago, and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Northwestern University.