Macondo Nuevo Mundo

Contact:
Olivia Doerge        
Macondo Foundation
210-534-0517 phone
210-396-2768 cell
macondo@macondofoundation.org

Nuevo Mundo

Join us for three nights of performances, 

dancing and music celebrating our guest writers.

Gloria Anzaldúa once said, “The U.S.-Mexican border is una herida abierta (an open wound) where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds.” But, the border is also a womb where worlds spark and art is born. We are living this paradox—a time in which far-reaching communities are coming into contact and create something new. From this fusion and confusion come flourishing hybrids, intense creation and a new mestizaje. The Macondo Writers’ Workshop presents three nights of readings including a special Friday night performance by Leslie Marmon Silko and Elena Poniatowska. These women are inspirational voices of las Américas who take a political stance as writers and activists.

This event is supported by the City of San Antonio Office of Cultural Affairs and by the Ford Foundation through a Transnational Cultural Remittances grant from NALAC, the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture. It is also made possible with funding from the NALAC Fund for the Arts, which receives support from the Ford Foundation and Southwest Airlines. Other NFA funders include: JPMorgan Chase, MetLife Foundation, Nescafe Clasico, Heineken USA and The City of San Antonio Cultural Collaborative.


Wednesday, July 28
Featuring: John Phillip Santos and Macondo Writers
Music: The Krayolas
Thiry Auditorium on Stage–at Our Lady of the Lake University from 7-9 p.m.


Thursday, July 29
Featuring: Norma Cantú and Macondo Writers
Music by El Trio Valendoza de Austin
Thiry Auditorium on Stage–at Our Lady of the Lake University from 7-9 p.m.


Friday, July 30
Featuring:  Leslie Marmon Silko, Elena Poniatowska and Sandra Cisneros
Music and Dance performances by Chayito Champion and S.T. Shimi
Jump-Start Performance Co.
108 Blue Star  at 8 p.m.
Seating is limited, so buy your tickets early.
$25 for general admission and $50 for table seating.
Visit www.macondofoundation.org or www.jump-start.org for more information.


Macondo Foundation
The Macondo Foundation is a not-for-profit organization that organizes and hosts an annual workshop for professional writers. It originally began as a writing workshop around the kitchen table of poet and writer Sandra Cisneros in 1998. In the last decade the workshop has grown from 15 participants to more than 150 participants. The foundation also has a writer-in-residency program and continues to grow in its outreach to writers. As an association of socially-engaged writers united to advance creativity, foster generosity, and honor community, the Macondo Foundation attracts generous and compassionate writers who view their work and talents as part of a larger task of community-building and non-violent social change.

For more information about the Macondo Foundation visit our web site www.macondofoundation.org.

About the Authors

Leslie Marmon Silko
Leslie Marmon Silko is a critically acclaimed contemporary American novelist, poet and filmmaker. She is Laguna Pueblo and her work deals with Native people and their displacement in national society. She was born in Albuquerque in 1948 and grew up at Laguna Pueblo where her father and family still reside. For the past thirty years she has lived in the Tucson Mountains with a number of parrots and dogs. Lately, she says,  “When Iʼm not writing, I paint star maps or grasshopper beings in acrylics to aid me in the completion of the novel I call Blue Sevens.” Her novels include Ceremony, Almanac of the Dead and Gardens in the Dunes. She has received numerous awards including a MacArthur Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, which she used to make the film “Arrowboy and the Witches.” Her memoir of walks in the hills, rattlesnakes, and rain clouds, titled The Turquoise Ledge, will be published by Penguin in the Fall of 2010. The novella, Ocean Story, will follow.

Elena Poniatowska
Elena Poniatowska is the beloved premier Mexican writer. Poniatowska was born in France, of Polish descent, but came to Mexico as a child. She has dedicated her life to writing about the poorest of the poor and those who are often invisible in Mexican society. Her work as a journalist, essayist and novelist looks at both popular culture and high culture and is as easily recognized by professors as by taxi drivers.  She has authored more than 50 works including La noche de Tlatelolco (Mexican Massacre), Nada, nadie (Nothing, Nobody), La piel del cielo (The Skin of the Sky), winner of the Alfaguara Prize in 2001, and Tinísima. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and an Emeritus Fellowship from Mexico’s National Council of Culture and Arts. She was also the first woman to win the Mexican National Award for Journalism in 1979. She also received a French Legion of Honor award in 2004. Her work has been translated in many languages. She currently resides in Mexico.

Sandra Cisneros 
Sandra Cisneros is the founder of the Macondo Foundation, a MacArthur Foundation Fellow and the organizer of the Latino MacArthur Fellows, los MacArturos. For over thirty years she has published poetry, novels and short stories. Her awards are several, including two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships and a Texas Medal of Arts. Her House on Mango Street (1984) is required reading in schools across the nation and recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. Her books have been published across the globe. Some of her recent accomplishments this year include being Grand Marshall of the Poteet Strawberry Festival and singing on stage at the Apollo Theater in Harlem (for a commencement speech).

To arrange interviews with the authors please contact Olivia Doerge, Macondo Executive Director, at (210)-534-0517 or (210)-396-2768. Photos of the authors are also available.