The Sounds of the Futuro: The Making of Fiebre Tropical
Julián Delgado Lopera, author
Part of UMBC's 2023 Humanities Forum

What if Spanglish were to be the default language of high literature? In this talk Julián Delgado Loperaexamines oral traditions, spoken word, and language that’s fleeting and usually discarded as sites of ripe creativity and engines for the making of their novel, Fiebre Tropical.

Julián Delgado Lopera is the author of The New York Times acclaimed novel Fiebre Tropical (Feminist Press 2020), the Winner of the 2021 Ferro Grumley Award and a 2021 Lambda Literary award; a finalist of the 2020 Kirkus Prize in Fiction and the 2021 Aspen Literary Prize. Julián is also the author of Quiéreme (Nomadic Press 2017) and ¡Cuéntamelo! (Aunt Lute 2017) an illustrated bilingual collection of oral histories by LGBT Latinx immigrants which won a 2018 Lambda Literary Award and a 2018 Independent Publisher Book Award. Julián has received fellowships and residencies from Black Mountain Institute, Hedgebrook, California Arts Council, San Francisco Arts Commission, Headlands Center for The Arts, Brush Creek Foundation of the Arts, Lambda Literary Foundation and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Their work has appeared in Granta, Teen Vogue, The Kenyon Review, McSweeney’s, The Rumpus, The White Review, Latin American Literature Today (LALT), Four Way Review, Broadly, and TimeOut Mag, to name a few. They are the former executive director of RADAR Productions and one of the founders of Drag Queen Story Hour. Born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia, Julián currently resides in San Francisco.

Admission is free.

Co-sponsored by the Latinx and Hispanic Faculty Association and the Department of Gender, Women’s, + Sexuality Studies.

Photo provided by the speaker.