Jean Franco (March 31, 1924 – December 14, 2022) was a British-born American academic and literary critic known for her pioneering work on

Latin American literature Latin American literature consists of the oral and written literature of Latin America in several languages, particularly in Spanish, Portuguese, and the indigenous languages of the Americas. It rose to particular prominence globally during the ...

.Risen, Clay
"Jean Franco, 98, Pioneering Scholar of Latin American Literature, Dies."
''New York Times'', December 31, 2022, retrieved January 31, 2023. Educated at

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and

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, she taught at London,

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...

(where she was the university's first professor of Latin American literature),"Jean Franco."
''Institute for Research on Women and Gender at Columbia University'', retrieved March 31, 2013. and Stanford, and was latterly professor emerita at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

Research

Jean Franco's research was wide-ranging and voluminous. She was among the first English-speaking Latin Americanists to write seriously about Latin American literature. She particularly focused on women and women's writing and was a pioneer of Latin American cultural studies.

Personal life and death

Franco died on December 14, 2022, at the age of 98.

Awards

* In 1992 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Essex. * In 1996 she won a

PEN A pen is a common writing instrument that applies ink to a surface, usually paper, for writing or drawing. Early pens such as reed pens, quill pens, dip pens and ruling pens held a small amount of ink on a nib or in a small void or cavity wh ...

award for lifetime contribution to the dissemination of Latin American literature in English. * In 2000 the

Latin American Studies Association The Latin American Studies Association (LASA) is the largest association for scholars of Latin American studies. Founded in 1966, it has over 12,000 members, 45 percent of whom reside outside the United States (36 percent in Latin America and the C ...

awarded her the Kalman Silvert Award for her contributions to

Latin American Studies Latin American studies (LAS) is an academic and research field associated with the study of Latin America. The interdisciplinary study is a subfield of area studies, and can be composed of numerous disciplines such as economics, sociology, history ...

.Ewell, Judith
"''Critical Passions: Selected Essays'' (review)."
''The Americas'' 57.3 (2001): 422-24. Retrieved March 31, 2013. * In 2002 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Manchester. * Her book ''The Decline and Fall of the Lettered City'' was awarded the Bolton-Johnson Prize by the Conference of Latin American Historians for the best work in English on the History of Latin America published in 2003.

Selected publications

* ''The Modern Culture of Latin America'' (1967) * ''An Introduction to Latin American Literature'' (1969) * ''Spanish American Literature Since Independence'' (1973) * ''César Vallejo. The Dialectics of Poetry and Silence'' (1976) * ''Plotting Women. Gender and Representation in Mexico'' (1989) * ''Marcar diferencias, cruzar fronteras: ensayos'' (1996) * ''Critical Passions: Selected Essays'', edited by Mary Louise Pratt and Kathleen Newman (1999) * ''The Decline and Fall of the Lettered City: Latin America in the Cold War'' (2002) * ''Cruel Modernity'' (2013)

References

External links

Biography
from Columbia University * Jean Franco

text of a lecture {{DEFAULTSORT:Franco, Jean 1924 births 2022 deaths British emigrants to the United States British literary critics Latin Americanists Literary critics of Spanish Women literary critics Academics of the University of London Academics of the University of Essex Columbia University faculty Stanford University faculty