The Life and Work of Severo Sarduy: A Conversation with Mercedes Sarduy and Catalina Quesada

Severo Sarduy (Camaguey, Cuba 1937-Paris. 1993) was a novelist. poet, critic. essayist. and painter. and one of the most prominent Cuban writers during \u27the twentieth century. He left the island in 1959 and lived in France since 1960. where he created most of his literary works. among them De donde son los cantantes (1967) and Cobra (1972). which won him the French Medicis Prize for best foreign novel. He collaborated with the French journal Tel Que/ and the Spanish·language journal Mundo Nuevo. In this presentation, Dr. Catalina Quesada will interview Mercedes Sarduy, Severo Sarduy\u27s sister and president of the nonprofit organization, the Severo Sarduy Cultural Foundation. Ms. Sarduy recently published a selection of his brother\u27s letters and her own recollections in Cartas a mi hermana en La Habana (2013). She holds a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Havana. Catalina Quesada {Ph.D ., University of Seville) is currently a Visiting Scholar at FlU\u27s Cuban Research Institute. She is an Assistant Professor of Spanish American Literature and Culture at the University of Bern in Switzerland. Dr. Quesada has worked and published extensively on the literary work of Severo Sarduy. She is the coeditor of Sarduy entre nosotros (forthcoming In 2015). a collective volume that includes essays by world-renowned specialists in the work of the Cuban write