In the shade of the drug lords
In the spring term 2017 Juan Gabriel Vásquez will be „Friedrich Dürrenmatt Guest Professor for World Literature“ at the University of Bern
Juan Gabriel Vásquez was born 1973 in Bogotá, Colombia and studied literature at the Sorbonne University in Paris. Before his breakthrough as a novelist, he gained acceptance both as the translator of Victor Hugo, John Dos Passos and E. M. Forster and as an essayist and columnist. His novels have been awarded many prizes and been published in sixteen different languages. Vásquez is regarded as one of the most important latin-american voices of his generation.
In his novels Vásquez tells the story of Colombia as its has been marked by civil wars and drug wars. All his main characters are affected by this history of violence. In The Informers (2004) the reader learns about immigrants during the Nazi era, in The Secret History of Costaguana (2007) about Panama’s secession. The Reputation (2013) is all about the power of a formidable cartoonist, The Shape of Ruins (2015) about political assassinations. In The Sound of Things Falling (2010) the protagonist’s investigations into the death of a drug runner lead him to the Medellín cartel and legendary serial killer Pablo Escobar. Chosen from over 600 manuscript submissions, this novel has been awarded the Alfaguara Novel Prize, one of the most prestigious literary awards in Spanish language.
Together with his family, Juan Gabriel Vásquez will spend the spring term 2017 in Switzerland to lecture as Friedrich Dürrenmatt Guest Professor at the University of Bern. During a weekly seminar on „The Art of the Novel“ he will show how this form of expression has shaped our moral views, political system and society. Besides teaching his class, Juan Gabriel Vásquez will participate in workshops and readings in different towns and cities across Switzerland.
In the spring term 2017 the Colombian author Juan Gabriel Vásquez will teach a seminar on „The Art of the Novel“, based on Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, at the University of Bern. This course will argue that the genre of the novel has shaped our moral views, political system and society.
