Author and scholar Gustavo Pérez Firmat will give a reading at the James A. Thomas Hall, Room 225, on the campus of UNC Pembroke from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. on October 2.
The talk is open to the public. Firmat will speak to a Latino Literature class earlier in the day. Firmat, a Cuban American, writes novels, memoirs, poetry and academic works in Spanish and English.
He is the author of 15 books of prose and poetry, including a memoir, Next Year in Cuba (1995), which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He taught at Duke University for two decades and later was the David Feinson Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University until his retirement in 2022.
Firmat is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Mellon Foundation.
In 1997, Newsweek included him among the “100 Americans to watch for the 21st century,” and Hispanic Business Magazine selected him as one of the “100 most influential Hispanics” in the United States. He has been featured in the documentary Cuba American and the 2013 PBS series Latino Americans.
Firmat’s visit coincides with Hispanic Heritage Month celebrations at UNCP.
