The Jewish Experience in Latin America Ilan Stavans shakes things up

Ilan Stavans, "the czar of Latino culture in the United States" (New York Times), will speak on "The Jewish Experience in Latin America" at 1 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 15, at the New Mexico History Museum. The lecture is part of the week-long festival, "Celebrate! The Jewish Experience in Spanish-Speaking Countries," sponsored by the New Mexico Anti-Defamation League. The festival, which will be held in Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Taos, is an unprecedented week of film, music, art, theater, food, exhibits and lectures highlighting the extraordinary historic and contemporary journey of the Jewish people after their expulsion from Spain in 1492.

Stavans, a Mexican-American essayist, lexicographer, cultural commentator, translator, short-story author, TV personality and teacher, is known for his insights into American, Hispanic, and Jewish cultures. He has been called "the czar of Latino culture in the United States" by the New York Times and "Latin America's liveliest and boldest critic and most innovative cultural enthusiast" by the Washington Post. whose Jewish family emigrated from Poland to Mexico, is the Lewis-Sebring Professor of Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College and the recipient of numerous honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Latino Literature Prize, the Antonia Pantoja Award, Chile's Presidential Medal, and the Rubén Darío Distinction. He earned an Emmy nomination as host of the PBS show La Plaza: Conversations with Ilan Stavans.

According to Harvard's renowned professor, Henry Louis Gates Jr.: "Ilan Stavans is an inventive interpreter of the contemporary cultures of the Americas…. Cantankerous and clever, sprightly and serious, Stavans is a voracious thinker. In his writing, life serves to illuminate literature—and vice versa: he is unafraid to court controversy, unsettle opinions, make enemies. In short, Stavans is an old-fashioned intellectual, a brilliant interpreter of his triple heritage—Jewish, Mexican, and American."

Stavans will also speak at 4 pm on Sunday, Nov. 15, at the National Hispanic Cultural Center; a tapas and wine reception will follow.

This lecture is sponsored by the New Mexico Anti-Defamation League, the New Mexico History Museum and the National Hispanic Cultural Center.

In addition to the lecture, Stavans will be signing copies of his books, including On Borrowed Words (Penguin), The Oxford Book of Jewish Stories (Oxford), Tropical Synagogues (Holmes and Meier), The Cross the and the Scroll (Routledge), The Essential Ilan Stavans (Routledge), The Disappearance (TriQuarterly), and Becoming Americans (Library of America).

Major funding for Celebrate! has been provided by the Isaac Liberman Foundation.  Partners who have provided expertise and additional funding include the Mexican Consulate, the National Hispanic Cultural Center, the Instituto Cervantes, Casa Sefarad-Israel, CLARO at the University of New Mexico, The New Mexico History Museum, El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe,  , the Ronald Gardenswartz Jewish Community Center of Albuquerque, The Israeli Consulate, Working Classroom, Congregation Nahalat Shalom,  the Sokolove/Singer/Buchwald families, and the Santa Fe Society for Jewish Arts and Culture.