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Internationally Acclaimed Author, Statesman Carlos Fuentes to Speak at Daemen College April 16, 2009
Author, statesman and scholar Carlos Fuentes, who has defined the cultural, emotional and hereditary identity of an entire continent, will speak at Daemen College, 7:30 p.m., Thursday, April 16, 2009. Fuentes’ talk, “Globalization: A New Deal for a New Age,” will serve as the keynote address to the 2009 Daemen College Academic Festival, and will be held in Wick Center on the Daemen campus. It will be free and open to the public. Daemen College acknowledges the generosity of Robert Warren and the Estate of Rupert Warren in helping to make this event possible.
The Daemen College Academic Festival centers on student presentations to the community and campus guests, providing a showcase for academic achievement and excellence through student and faculty presentations, exhibitions, and performances. These presentations may reflect work done in a single discipline or be interdisciplinary in nature, and range in form from posters, papers, panel discussions, exhibits, or videos, to artistic, musical, or theatrical performances.
Carlos Fuentes is recognized worldwide as one of the greatest literary and political figures of the Spanish-speaking world.
Fuentes’ novels include The New York Times bestseller, The Old Gringo, the first American bestseller written by a Mexican author (also made into a film starring Gregory Peck and Jane Fonda), as well as the classics Terra Nostra and The Death of Artemio Cruz, which look deeply into the identity of Latin America, its internal conflicts and its contentious relationship with the superpower to the north. His nonfiction work and essays also celebrate the rich contributions of Latin culture (including The Buried Mirror, which became a Discovery Channel series). His latest book, The Eagle’s Throne, “is the most wickedly entertaining novel of Fuentes’ career,” said The New York Times.
He has won Mexico’s National Prize in Literature, the Miguel de Cervantes Prize (the highest honor for a Spanish-language writer), France’s Legion of Honor and the Four Freedoms Award. He was the first recipient of the Latin Civilization Award presented by the Presidents of Brazil, Mexico and France. He has also served as Director of International Cultural Relations for Mexico’s Ministry of Exterior Relations and the Mexican Ambassador to France.
He has just completed his first play, and his new collection of short stories, Every Happy Family, was published in spring 2008.