Poet and translator Jaime Manrique and translator Laura Healy will offer poems by five Latin American poets and discuss the art of translation. Manrique will read works by the Colombian poet and activist María Mercedes Carranza; Reinaldo Arenas, the Cuban exiled writer whose memoir, Before Night Falls, was made into a film by Julian Schnabel; and Raùl Gómez Jattin, a Colombian poet who was mentally ill and homeless. Manrique will also offer a few of his own poems to show how these Latin American poets have influenced his recent work. Healy will read from her translations of work by Mario Santiago Papasquiaro and Roberto Bolaño, cofounders of the poetic movement Infrarealism, which was immortalized in Bolaño's Savage Detectives. Like the fictional characters Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima, Bolaño and Papasquiaro tried to infuse their poetry with life as much as they infused their lives with poetry. The evening will serve as an introduction to the work of Latin American poets who spent their lives in the margins, whether by choice or as a matter of circumstance.

This event is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

Laura Healy is the translator of Roberto Bolaño's poetry collections The Romantic Dogs and Tres. She has also translated poetry by Germán Carrasco, Giaconda Belli, Eduardo Mitre and Ida Vitale. Her translations have appeared in Harper's, Poetry, The Believer, The Nation, and many other journals. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard University.

Jaime Manrique is a Colombian poet, novelist, essayist, and translator who has written in both English and Spanish, and whose work has been translated into many languages. Among his publications in English are the volumes of poems My Night with Federico García Lorca, Tarzan, My Body, and Christopher Columbus; the novels Colombian Gold, Latin Moon in Manhattan, Twilight at the Equator, and Our Lives Are the Rivers; and the memoir Eminent Maricones: Arenas, Lorca, Puig, and Me. His honors include Colombia's National Poetry Award, the 2007 International Latino Book Award for Best Historical Novel, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. From 2002-08 Manrique was Associate Professor in the MFA program in writing at Columbia University. He was Visiting Writer in the MFA program in writing at Rutgers University, Spring 2009.

This program is made possible, in part, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.