For more than 25 years, the San Miguel chapter of PEN, the international writers’ association, has organized a winter series of events in the auditorium of the Bellas Artes museum in downtown San Miguel. This year, San Miguel PEN will be featuring a winter lecture series on Tuesdays during January and February 2010. The line-up is:
Tues, Jan 12: Guadalupe Jimenez Codinach, a local historian, talking about “The Village of San Miguel and the War of Independence,” illustrated with a slideshow of historical graphics (and honoring San Miguel’s role in the upcoming Mexican bicentennial in Sept 2010).
Tues, Jan 19: Katherine Hatch, author and longtime resident of Cuernavaca, talking about her new book Suddenly, Mexico! – a collection of essays, reflections and anecdotes of her life in the small town of Paraiso (which some will recognize as the old colonial neighborhood of Acapantzingo in Cuernavaca). Hatch is best known for My Life in Three Acts, her definitive biography of actress Helen Hayes (also a longtime winter resident of Cuernavaca).
Tues, Jan 26: Journalist David Lida, discussing his favorite city and new book: Mexico City, Capital of the 21st Century. The Los Angeles Times called the work “a charmingly idiosyncratic, yet remarkably comprehensive portrait of one of the planet’s most misinterpreted urban spaces.” The book includes chapters about food, sex, crime, religion, politics, and a host of other subjects – all told through the stories of Mexico City residents.
Tues, Feb 2: Austin Briggs, San Miguel’s favorite English professor, turns from his usual focus on James Joyce to discuss another favorite author in “The Joys of Dickens: Reading Great Expectations.”
Tues, Feb 9: Winter resident of San Miguel Joe Persico, biographer of many and former speechwriter for Nelson A. Rockefeller, returns to the PEN series with a lecture titled: “Writers Meet Such Interesting Characters: People I’ve Interviewed Who Refused to be Interviewed and Other Memorable Encounters on the Way to my 11 Books.”
Tues, Feb 16: C.M. Mayo talks about The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire, her new historical novel based on the true story of a two-year-old boy in the U.S. who came into the line of succession to the Emperor of Mexico, the Habsburg Archduke Maximilian.
All lectures take place at 6 pm in the Miguel Malo Auditorium inside Bellas Artes (located at Calle Hernandez Macias #75). A contribution of 70 pesos is requested for each lecture.