The Art of Flight

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

SERGIO PITOL, one of the leading Mexican writers of his generation, was born in the city of Puebla in 1933. He studied law and philosophy in Mexico City before beginning an intellectual career that included writing and translation while working in the promotion of Mexican culture abroad, which he achieved during his long service as a cultural attaché in Mexican embassies and consulates across the globe. He has lived perpetually on the run: he was a student in Rome, a translator in Beijing and Barcelona, a university professor in Xalapa and Bristol, and a diplomat in Warsaw, Budapest, Paris, Moscow, and Prague. One of the most versatile, well-respected, and influential authors of the twentieth century, Pitol began publishing novels, stories, criticism, and translations in the 1960s. Elected to the Mexican Academy of Language in 1997, he has received his nation’s most important literary awards, as well as the internationally recognized Herralde Prize, which has also been awarded to Javier Marías, Roberto Bolaño, and Álvaro Enrigue. He is also one of the Spanish language’s most accomplished translators, having brought into Spanish works by Jane Austen, Joseph Conrad, Lewis Carroll, Henry James, and Witold Gombrowicz. In recognition of the importance of his entire canon of work, Pitol has been awarded the two most important literary prizes in the Spanish language world given to an author for a lifetime’s body of literature: the Juan Rulfo Prize in 1999 (now known as the FIL Literary Award in Romance Languages), and the 2005 Cervantes Prize, known as the most prestigious literary prize in the Spanish language world, often called the “Spanish language Nobel.” Though Pitol’s works have been translated into a dozen languages, Deep Vellum will publish Pitol’s “Trilogy of Memory” in full in 2015–2016 (The Art of Flight; The Journey; The Magician of Vienna), marking the first publication of any of Pitol’s books in the English language.

GEORGE HENSON is a senior lecturer of Spanish at the University of Texas at Dallas, where he is completing a Ph.D. in literary and translation studies. His translations, including works by Andrés Neuman, Miguel Barnet, and Leonardo Padura, have appeared previously in World Literature Today. His translations of Elena Poniatowska’s The Heart of the Artichoke and Luis Jorge Boone’s The Cannibal Night were published in 2012 by Alligator Press.

ENRIQUE VILA-MATAS is one of the most accomplished writers in the Spanish language. His novels have been translated into 30 languages, and he has received numerous international honors and literary prizes.