Meet the Author: Margarita Saona

Margarita Saona, Peruvian author, will read from her short-story collection The Ghost of You, recently published in Canada by Laberinto Press, which focuses on underrepresented ESL writing and World Literature in translation. In her review of the book for the Miramichi Reader, Carrie Stanton wrote: “The Ghost of You is a collection about loss – loss of time, of circumstances, of wishes, and of people, some of whom we may not have ever met, but we know intimately […] Margarita Saona is a masterful creator of story. Her use of language and form is unique, as is her skill with the application of sparse wording, which leads to a tremendous impact being felt by her reader.”

This event will be moderated by Myriam Bowles-Carrier and Luc Murray Mercier.

You are not able to attend the event in person? Join us by Zoom!

THE AUTHOR

Photo Credit: Mariana Bazo

Margarita Saona teaches Latin American literature in the department of Hispanic and Italian Studies. She is interested in issues of memory, cognition, empathy, and representation in literature and the arts. Her scholarly publications include Novelas familiares: Figuraciones de la nación en la novela latinoamericana contemporánea (2004), Memory Matters in Transitional Perú (2014), and Despadre: masculinidades, travestismos y ficciones de la ley en la literatura peruana (2021). Her short stories have been collected under the title La ciudad en que no estás (2020), published in English translation as The Ghost of You (2023). She has also published the poetry collection Corazón de hojalata/Tin Heart (2017), which received the Luces award for the best Peruvian poetry collection of the year. She is currently working on an essay on medical interventions entitled Of Monsters and Cyborgs and a multi-genre memoir on the experience of heart transplantation. She has been recognized twice by the Council of Excellence in Teaching and Learning and received the 2022 Amauta Tumi Award for outstanding teachers granted by the Peruvian community in the U.S. She has been a fellow of the UIC Institute for the Humanities on three occasions, including this year for her project on illness and writing. She is also one of the fellows of The Patient Revolution, an initiative by Dr. Victor Montori from the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota to seek ways to transform medical care systems.

This event is free and does not require registration.

This event is held in partnership with the Département de littérature, théâtre et cinéma de la Faculté des lettres et des sciences humaines at Université Laval.