The wild palm trees

The fourth session of The Wild Palm Trees, the annual cycle of world literature hosted and produced by CentroCentro, and which on this occasion is part of the Eñe Festival, offers a journey around letters, art, music and thought.

The writer and editor Eliot Weinberger (New York, 1949), in one of his few public appearances in our country, will trace a tour of all of his work, highlighting his work as an essayist on wide-ranging topics and a style close to experimental. Weinberger, translator of authors such as Octavio Paz or Jorge Luis Borges, will be interviewed by Aurelio Major (Mexico, 1963), poet and anthologist, translator of Susan Sontag and Weinberger himself, and co-founder of the Spanish edition of the magazine Granta.

At this event, the writer Rodrigo Rey Rosa (Guatemala, 1958) will also appear, one of the most relevant authors in the Spanish language, resident in Athens - previously in New York and Tangier -, and executor and disciple of Paul Bowles, of whom he He was a translator. To conclude, the musical and poetic epilogue will offer for the first time a back-and-forth dialogue between the simple and mysterious poetry of Amalia Bautista (Madrid, 1962) and the revision of musical traditions proposed by the singer-songwriter María Rodés (Barcelona, 1986).

This meeting will serve to close the first season of The Wild Palm Trees, a series curated by Enrique Juncosa and Txema Martín that has included authors such as Ishion Hutchinson, Jennifer Clement, Alberto Ruy Sánchez, Enrique Vila-Matas, José Carlos Llop, Laura García -Lorca, Luis Alberto de Cuenca, Gabriela Wiener, Félix de Azúa, Julia Piera, Álvaro Cortina and Bárbara Mingo, and musicians like Tulsa, La Estrella de David and La Bien Querida.

Eliot Weinberger was born in New York, United States, in 1949. Writer, editor and translator into English of Jorge Luis Borges, Vicente Huidobro, Bei Dao and Octavio Paz (translations that earned him the Order of the Aztec Eagle), among others. He is one of the most renowned essayists and a true innovator of the genre, with decisive contributions in this field. As an anthology, the already referential An Anthology of North American Poetry since 1950 stands out especially, which introduced innovative poets from currents from the historical avant-garde, such as George Oppen, Paul Blackburn, David Antin or Lorine Niedecker, among others. He was a correspondent for the magazine Vuelta de Nueva York and recipient of different awards for his contribution to the dissemination of Hispanic culture in the United States, such as the PEN/Kolovakos award for the promotion of literature in Spanish or the National Critics Circle award. from the United States for his anthology on Borges. In addition, he has been a finalist for the United States Critics' Award. His essays are translated into more than thirty languages.

Rodrigo Rey Rosa was born in Guatemala in 1958 and is considered one of the best current writers in Spanish. His works have been translated into other languages, such as French, Italian, German, Danish, Portuguese and Japanese. After finishing his studies in his country, he lived in New York where he enrolled in the School of Visual Arts. On his first trip to Tangier, he attended a six-week literary workshop with the writer Paul Bowles and remained in Morocco for a long period in which Bowles translated his first three works into English, which allowed him to become known in the world. Anglo-Saxon world. For his part, Rey Rosa has translated into Spanish several books by Paul Bowles, and other authors such as Norman Lewis, Paul Léauteaud or François Augiéras. He also maintains a friendship with the Spanish painter Miquel Barceló, whose work illustrates some of his books. He currently lives in the city of Athens. He is the author of an extensive literary work, translated into many languages, which reflects his taste for travel, cosmopolitanism and sociopolitical issues. He won the National Literature Prize in 2004 and has published some of the most unique books in recent Latin American literature, such as El material humano (Alfaguara).

Aurelio Major (1963) es poeta, traductor y editor. Fue director de la editorial adscrita a la revista Vuelta, presidida por Octavio Paz; director editorial de la filial mexicana de Tusquets Editores el siglo pasado, y cofundador con Valerie Miles de la revista Granta en español en este. Ha antologizado la obra de Edmund Wilson, Basil Bunting, Tomás Segovia e Ida Vitale entre otros. Es traductor al español de la obra de Susan Sontag, David Rieff y Basil Bunting, y de la de Charles Tomlinson, Michael Hamburger y George Oppen, entre otros poetas de lengua inglesa. En 2022 se reeditó su edición Obra selecta de Edmund Wilson (Lumen). Este año se ha dado a la luz su edición de la Poesía reunida de Francisco Ferrer Lerín (Tusquets). Su último libro de poesía es Pródromo (2019, Libros de la Resistencia en España y Vaso Roto en América). Desde hace decenios ha sido traductor a este idioma de casi toda la obra de Eliot Weinberger, cuyo libro más reciente, con Lydia Davis, es Dos escenas americanas (Kriller 71 y Zindo & Gafuri).

Amalia Bautista (Madrid, 1962) es una de las poetas más destacadas y admiradas de su generación. Es licenciada en Ciencias de la Información por la Universidad Complutense. Ha publicado libros como Cárcel de amor (Renacimiento, 1988), Cuéntamelo otra vez (La Veleta, 1999), Hilos de seda (Renacimiento, 2003), Estoy ausente (Pre-Textos, 2004), Pecados (en colaboración con Alberto Porlan; El Gaviero, 2005), Tres deseos. Poesía reunida (Renacimiento, 2006; segunda edición, 2010), Roto Madrid (con fotografías de José del Río Mons; Renacimiento, 2008), Falsa pimienta (Renacimiento, 2013), el libro de poesía infantil Floricela (La Bella Varsovia, 2019) y Azul el agua (La Bella Varsovia, 2022). Sus poemas han aparecido en numerosas revistas y antologías y han sido traducidos a varias lenguas. Sus libros han sido publicados en Portugal por la editorial Averno. Fue responsable de la edición de la antología Juegos de inteligencia (Renacimiento, 2011) de la poeta mexicana Rosario Castellanos.