NEW ROCHELLE, NY — For award-winning Spanish author José Ovejero, the “real‘’ Spain has been quite different from the image it has projected to the outside world in the 40 years since the death of Francisco Franco in 1975. According to Ovejero, who has lived abroad for many years serving the European Union, that image of a post-Franco democratic and modern Spain is fiction. On Thursday, November 5, The College of New Rochelle will host a talk by Ovejero on “Spanish Fictions” – the author’s experiences and reflections on living in the “real” Spain since his return home in 2013.
His talk, to be held at 7 p.m. in Romita Auditorium, is part of a series of events organized by the Westchester Consortium for International Studies, a partnership between The College of New Rochelle and Manhattanville College. The event is free and open to the public. Earlier on November 5, Ovejero will teach a Creative Writing Workshop at CNR for students in the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of New Resources. The following day, CNR students will attend a dramatization in Spanish of Ovejero performing some of his short stories at Manhattanville College. For more information contact: amckernan@cnr.edu.
“Having José Ovejero on campus offers our students and community an amazing opportunity to hear firsthand the thought process of a writer that integrates socio-political issues in his own work in provocative ways to question our perceptions of reality,“ explained Dr. Anne McKernan, CNR’s representative to the Westchester Consortium for International Studies and retired Associate Professor of History.
Dr. Nereida Segura-Rico, Associate Professor of Modern Foreign Languages added that, “in conjunction with the afternoon writing workshop for CNR students, Ovejero’s talk will be a true learning experience for students. They will be able to connect the many facets of the creative process to the role of the writer in society.“
Ovejero won the Alfaguara Novel Prize in 2013, one of the most prestigious awards in the Spanish language, for his novel La invención del amor. He has worked in a variety of genres, including poetry, drama, essays, short stories, and novels, receiving prizes for works in several of them. His books have been translated into multiple languages, and his articles and short stories have been published in Spain and abroad. Born in Madrid, he has lived outside Spain for the greater part of his life, and worked as a conference interpreter at the European Union from 1998 to 2001