We were pleased to organize reading by, and conversation with, renowned Argentine novelist Samanta Schweblin, who is serving as a visiting fellow with the Georgetown Americas Institute (GAI) during fall 2023. The Georgetown University Department of Spanish and Portuguese and GAI are pleased to welcome Schweblin for a reading of unpublished work, as well as a discussion on her writing process, inspirations, and the prevalent themes in her work. The conversation, in Spanish, will be moderated by Tania Gentic, associate professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.
This event took place in Spanish only. The event was sponsored by GAI and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Georgetown University.
Featuring
Samanta Schweblin is the author of the novels Distancia de rescate (Fever Dream) and Kentukis (Little Eyes), as well as the short-story collections Pájaros en la boca (Mouthful of Birds) and Siete casas vacías (Seven Empty Houses). Schweblin published her first book in 2001, El núcleo del disturbio, a collection of short stories that received an award from Argentina's National Endowment for the Arts and was chosen by Granta as one of the 22 best writers in Spanish language under the age of 35. The translations into English of Mouthful of Birds and Little Eyes by Megan McDowell have twice placed Schweblin on the longlist of the International Booker Prize. She has also received the prestigious Casa de las Américas, Ojo Crítico, and Shirley Jackson awards. Schweblin’s books have been translated into 35 languages, and her work has appeared in English in the New Yorker and Harper’s Magazine. In 2021, Distancia de rescate was made into a Netflix film directed by Claudia Llosa. Originally from Buenos Aires, Schweblin lives in Berlin, Germany.
Tania Gentic is an associate professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and a core faculty member of the Comparative Literature Program at Georgetown University. She specializes in the literature, history, and culture of the contemporary Ibero-Atlantic world. As her research and teaching reflect, Gentic is driven by questions that explore the production and consumption of identity, be it through journalistic discourse and new media, philosophical explorations of subjectivity, or literary representations of nation, immigration, and community.