The New York City launching of Rolando Pérez’s Mesetas de espejos, a book of images and reflections—both individual and collective—that, through narratives and fables, seeks to give us some sense of where we stand on Earth and where we might be headed. The mesetas or plateaus—which in other books might take the form of chapters or aphorisms—function as vectors of intellectual and emotional intensity, connectable to one another or not. That is to say, Mesetas de espejos is not linear, but it is coherent and deeply personal—a text that engages in dialogue with literature, cinema, politics, philosophy, and art. At times, it evokes Virgilio Piñera, Italo Calvino, or Henri Michaux, yet always speaks in its own voice.
The author will be presented by writer and journalist Joaquin Gálvez.
Room B126
Please RSVP at: info@cubanculturalcenter.org
This event is part of our CreateNYC Language Access Series on Cuban History, Art, and Literature. It will be held in Spanish.
Rolando Pérez is an emeritus professor of Peninsular and Latin American literature and philosophy in the Department of Romance Languages at Hunter College in New York City (CUNY). Pérez is the author of several books of essays, plays, poetry, and prose poems. Among his notable works are The Lining of Our Souls: Excursions into Selected Paintings of Edward Hopper (2002, prose poems), Severo Sarduy and the Neo-Baroque Image of Thought in the Visual Arts (2012, criticism), La comedia eléctrica (2017, poetry), a postmodern version of Dante’s Divine Comedy, and Mesetas de espejos (2023, prose poems). His literary work in English is featured in the canonical The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature (2012). His upcoming book, La filosofía del siglo XX y sus tensiones, an introduction to Western philosophy, will be published by Pinolia (Madrid) in the spring of 2025.
Joaquin Badajoz is a Cuban American writer, art critic and journalist. Since 2004, he is a full member of the North American Academy of the Spanish Language (ANLE). He has published two poetry collections: Passar Paxaros/Casa obscura, aldea sumergida (1994-2004) and Cántaro (2004-2012).
He is also the co-author of Enciclopedia del Espańol en los Estados
Unidos (2009), Hablando bien se entiende la gente (2010)
and Diccionario de americanismos (2010).
This event is presented in association with the Department of Romance Languages at Hunter College (CUNY)
And is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York State Legislature.
With the promotional cooperation of Rialta, 14yMedio and Diario de Cuba
