Alberto Ruy-Sánchez Lacy is a

Mexican Mexican may refer to: Mexico and its culture *Being related to, from, or connected to the country of Mexico, in North America ** People *** Mexicans, inhabitants of the country Mexico and their descendants *** Mexica, ancient indigenous people ...

writer and editor born in

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

on 7 December 1951. He is an author of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Since 1988 he has been the chief editor and founding publisher of Latin America's leading arts magazine, ''Artes de Mexico''. He has been a

visiting professor In academia, a visiting scholar, visiting scientist, visiting researcher, visiting fellow, visiting lecturer, or visiting professor is a scholar from an institution who visits a host university to teach, lecture, or perform research on a topic fo ...

at several universities including

Stanford Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth governor of and th ...

, Middlebury and

La Sorbonne The University of Paris (), known Metonymy, metonymically as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated wit ...

, and has been invited to give lectures in Europe, Africa, Asia, North America and South America. His work has been praised by

Octavio Paz Octavio Paz Lozano (March 31, 1914 – April 19, 1998) was a Mexican poet and diplomat. For his body of work, he was awarded the 1977 Jerusalem Prize, the 1981 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the 1982 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, a ...

Juan Rulfo Juan Nepomuceno Carlos Pérez Rulfo Vizcaíno, best known as Juan Rulfo (; 16 May 1917 – 7 January 1986), was a Mexican writer, screenwriter, and photographer. He is best known for two literary works, the 1955 novel ''Pedro Páramo'', and the ...

Severo Sarduy Severo Sarduy (February 25, 1937 – June 8, 1993) was a Cuban poet, author, playwright, and critic of Cuban literature and art. Some of his works deal explicitly with male homosexuality and transvestism. Biography Born in a working-class family ...

Alberto Manguel Alberto Manguel (born March 13, 1948, in Buenos Aires) is an Argentine Canadian, Argentine-Canadian anthologist, translator, essayist, novelist, editor, and a former director of the National Library of Argentina. He is a cosmopolitan and polyglo ...

and Claude Michel Cluny and has received awards from several international institutions.

Early life

Ruy-Sánchez's parents, Joaquín Ruy-Sánchez and María Antonieta Lacy, were both born in the northern Mexican state of

Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora (), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is divided into Municipalities of Sonora, 72 ...

. Alberto was the first of five children. For a few years, the family spent almost half the year in Mexico City and the other half in northern Mexico. These relocations included long residence periods in

Ciudad Obregón, Sonora Ciudad () is the Spanish word for "city". Ciudad or La Ciudad may also refer to: * La Ciudad (archaeological site), Hohokam ruins in Phoenix, Arizona * La Ciudad, district of Durango City, Mexico * ''La ciudad'', a novel by Mario Levrero published ...

and

Villa Constitución Villa Constitución is a city in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina, and the head town of the Constitución Department. It is located on the south-western banks of the Paraná River between the courses of the Arroyo Pavón and the Arroyo del M ...

in the Sonoran desert of

Baja California Baja California, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California, is a state in Mexico. It is the northwesternmost of the 32 federal entities of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1952, the area was known as the North Territory of B ...

, where Ruy-Sánchez lived from ages three to five. This experience gave him a unique early experience of the desert.

Journey to Morocco

Ruy-Sánchez had forgotten his early childhood experiences until he suddenly recalled them in 1975, visiting the

Sahara The Sahara (, ) is a desert spanning across North Africa. With an area of , it is the largest hot desert in the world and the list of deserts by area, third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Ar ...

for the first time. From that involuntary sudden recollection he developed a special creative relationship with the Moroccan desert, especially the walled city of

Essaouira Essaouira ( ; ), known until the 1960s as Mogador (, or ), is a port city in the western Moroccan region of Marrakesh-Safi, on the Atlantic coast. It has 77,966 inhabitants as of 2014. The foundation of the city of Essaouira was the work of t ...

(the ancient Mogador), which became a principal setting for most of his novels. As he explains in his essay, "The nine gifts that Morocco gave me":

Inspirations

Before travelling to Morocco for the first time as a teenager, and later returning as a college student, Ruy-Sánchez received a severe humanistic education from

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

schools in Mexico. From these experiences he gained "a Baroque idea of the world as a complex reality that can only be fully understood and enjoyed with all the senses." The baroque aim of "listening with the eyes, looking with the fingers and the ears, tasting with the smell, etc, as an artistic principle" is a common theme in his poetry and prose. Ruy-Sánchez's large Sonoran family finally fully emigrated to Mexico City and held weekly meetings where Ruy-Sánchez learned "the big pleasure of hearing and telling stories, and it was there that I felt growing inside me the desire of being a writer." This desire was confirmed when he visited the

Djemaa el Fna Jemaa el-Fnaa (), also Jemaa el-Fna, Djema el-Fna or Djemaa el-Fnaa, is a square and market place in Marrakesh's medina quarter (old city). It remains the main square of Marrakesh, used by locals and tourists. Name The origin of its name is uncl ...

square in Marrakech in 1975 and 1976, where traditional storytellers are responsible for the square's designation as an UNESCO Oral Human Heritage Site in June 1997.

The theme of search in life and writing

The theme of the search in Ruy-Sánchez's novels also has its roots in his own life. Specifically, he uses his novels as a means to search for knowledge in the senses of investigating life's mysteries and going beyond observed material reality. Ruy-Sánchez began writing seeking to understand women's desire, through the stories women told him those he witnessed. This first search led to the novel ''Mogador, the names of the air.'' This became a series that included ''En los labios del agua'', ''Los Jardines secretos de Mogador'', and ''Nueve veces el asombro''. The full series took almost twenty years to write, as each published novel generated many letters in response, mostly from women telling their own stories of desire. Sánchez would consider those stories, alter them, and create another book, following this ongoing theme of search. Ruy-Sánchez had a number of jobs while living in Paris, but in between he became a tantra student, a tantra instructor, and worked for a sexual therapist. This exploration of tantra contributed to the search through writing both in the sense of literally searching for women's desire and in a more spiritual or religious sense of seeking transcendent experiences. Ruy-Sánchez describes in a statement essa

his books as "material objects, geometrical compositions, that could help people think, feel, understand and improve their lives".

Education and reception

Ruy-Sánchez lived in Paris from 1975 to 1983. He took writing seminars from his thesis director

Roland Barthes Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 25 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popu ...

Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault ( , ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French History of ideas, historian of ideas and Philosophy, philosopher who was also an author, Literary criticism, literary critic, Activism, political activist, and teacher. Fo ...

Jacques Rancière Jacques Rancière (; ; born 10 June 1940) is a French philosopher, Professor of Philosophy at European Graduate School in Saas-Fee and Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris VIII: Vincennes—Saint-Denis. After co-authoring ...

and

André Chastel André Chastel (15 November 1912, Paris – 18 July 1990, Neuilly-sur-Seine) was a French art historian, author of an important work on the Italian Renaissance. He was a professor at the Collège de France, where he held the chair of art and civil ...

and received a PhD from the University of Paris. He worked as both an editor and a writer, building on his experiences as managing editor of the Mexican magazine '' Vuelta,'' edited by

, from 1984 to 1987. Paz called Ruy-Sánchez, "the strangest of Mexican writers, a true cosmopolitan poet telling stories from a territory wider than just a country because he is the poet from the Skin. That is why his language is the Touch, the sense that implies all the others." The Cuban writer

wrote that Ruy-Sánchez, "invented not only novels but a new way of reading, the way of poetic lightning stroke." The historian and essayist Alberto Manguel wrote about his novel Los sueños de la serpiente: "based on my experience I can say that this is a masterpiece. One of the most important books written in Spanish in recent years."Alberto Manguel: "Un laberinto en el que el lector se encuentra." EL Cultural, suplemento de la Razón. Número 209. Julio 19 2019. Páginas 6-

/ref>

Awards and current life

Ruy-Sánchez's books have been translated into several languages – mainly French, but also Portuguese, Italian, German, Arabic, Serbian and Turkish. Only one of his books has been published in English, however. They remain in print in Spanish as cult favorites, unusual for poetry. His first work came out in 1987, when he was awarded the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize, the most prestigious literary recognition in Mexico. The University of New Mexico awarded him as Literary Essayist in 1991 and he was also a Fellow of the

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation is a private foundation formed in 1925 by Olga and Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died on April 26, 1922. The organization awards Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Gr ...

. In February 2000 he was decorated by the French Government as Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. The Governor of Kentucky awarded him as "Kentucky Colonel", the highest distinction given in that state, where he also is Honnorary Citizen of Louisville. Between 1999 and 2003 he was appointed Chairman of the Creative Non-Fiction Summer Program at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada. In November 2006 The Editor's Guild of Mexico awarded him with the Premio Juan Pablos al Mérito Editorial, a lifetime achievement recognition for 26 years of working as an editor and mainly for his work in creating the publishing house '' Artes de México,'' a leading cultural project in the Americas. Ruy-Sánchez currently lives in Mexico City with his wife, historian Margarita De Orellana, coeditor of ''Artes de México'', and their children Andrea (born 1984) and Santiago (born 1987). He continues to speak internationally and travel within Mexico as a researcher of diverse Mexican cultures.

Bibliography

Novels * 1987. ''Los nombres del aire.'' English translation as ''Mogador'', by Mark Schafer, San Francisco, City Lights, 1993. * 1996. ''En los labios del agua'' * 1998. ''De agua y Aire. Disco.'' * 2001. ''Los jardines secretos de Mogador.''English translation as ''The Secret Gardens of Mogador'', by Rhonda Dahl Buchanan, Buffalo, New York, White Pine Press, 2008. * 2005. ''Nueve veces el asombro.'' * 2007. ''La mano del fuego.'' * 2014. ''Quinteto de Mogador.'' * 2018. ''Los sueños de la serpiente.'' * 2021. ''El expediente Anna Ajmátova.'' Short Stories * 1987. ''Los demonios de la lengua.'' * 1994. ''Cuentos de Mogador.'' * 1999. ''De cómo llegó a Mogador la melancolía.'' * 2001. ''La huella del grito.'' Essays * 1981. ''Mitología de un cine en crisis.'' * 1988. ''Al filo de las hojas.'' * 1990. ''Una introducción a

.'' * 1991. ''Tristeza de la verdad: André Gide regresa de Rusia.'' * 1992. ''Ars de cuerpo entero.'' * 1995. ''Con la Literatura en el cuerpo''. * 1997. ''Diálogos con mis fantasmas.'' * 1999. ''Aventuras de la mirada.'' * 2000. ''Cuatro escritores rituales.'' * 2011. ''La página posible.'' * 2011. ''Elogio del insomnio.'' * 2014. ''Octavio Paz: cuenta y canta la higuera.'' Poetry * 1990. ''La inaccessible.'' * 2006. ''Lugares prometidos.'' * 2006. ''El bosque erotizado.'' * 2011. ''Decir es desear.'' * 2016. ''Luz del colibrí.'' * 2017. ''Escrito con agua. Poemas de horizontes lejanos.'' * 2018. ''Soy el camino que tomo. Poemas marginales 1970-2018.'' * 2019. ''Dicen las jacarandas.'' * 2023. ''Letras inquietas.'' * 2025. ''El silencio del gato.''

Awards

*1987, Premio Xavier Villaurrutia for his novel ''Los nombres del aire.'' *1988, Fellowship, John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, Nueva York. *1991,

José Fuentes Mares National Prize for Literature José Fuentes Mares National Prize for Literature (Spanish: Premio Nacional de Literatura José Fuentes Mares or simply Premio José Fuentes Mares) is a Mexican literary award that has been presented annually since 1985 by the Universidad Autónoma ...

, for his book ''Una introducción a

''. New Mexico State University and Universidad de Ciudad Juarez. *1993, Honorary Member of the Sistema Nacional de Creadores, México. *1998, Honorary Citizen of Louisville, Kentucky. *1999, Honorary Member of the chapter Mu Epsilon of the National Hispanic Society

Sigma Delta Pi Sigma Delta Pi () is the national collegiate Hispanic honor society (La Sociedad Nacional Honoraria Hispánica). It was established on November 14, 1919, at the University of California at Berkeley. It has chartered more than 640 chapters in the Un ...

, in the USA. *1999. Kentucky Colonel, by the Governor of Kentucky. *2000. Prix des Trois Continents, for the French edition of his novel ''En los labios del agua.'' *2001. Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, by the French Government. *2002. Honorary Captain of the historical Steam Boat ''La belle de Louisville''. *2003. Premio Cálamo, by Librería Cálamo and the Universidad de Zaragoza for ''Los Jardines Secretos de Mogador'', Spain. *2005. Gran Orden de Honor Nacional al Mérito Autoral. By the . Mexico. *2006. Premio a la Excelencia de lo Nuestro. By the Fundación México Unido. México. *2006. Premio Juan Pablos al Mérito Editorial. By the Cámara Nacional de la Industria Editorial Mexicana (CANAIEM). Mexico. *2011. Premio San Petersburgo Lee, votación de lectores de la ciudad de San Petersburgo, Rusia. *2014. Premio Las Pérgolas. Otorgado por la Asociación Mexicana de Libreros.Entregado durante la FIL Guadalajara. Por su "contribución notable a las letras hispánicas". *2015. Premio ELENA PONIATOWSKA, Chicago. Otorgado por el NATIONAL MUSEUM OF MEXICAN ARTS, en Chicago. 22 de mayo. Premio compartido con Margarita De Orellana. *2015. Premio POESTATE 2015. Otorgado por el Festival de Poesía de la ciudad de Lugano, Suiza: POESTATE. 6 de junio. Compartido con Elsa Cross. *2017. Premio Homenaje al Bibliófilo 2017. Otorgando por la FIL: Feria Internacional del libro de Guadalajara *2017. Premio Nacional de Ciencias y Artes 2017. Campo de Lingüística y Literatura. Máxima distinción que otorga el estado mexicano desde 1945. *2018. Premio Mazatlán de Literatura. Por la novela Los sueños de la serpiente. *2018. Doctorado Honoris Causa. Otorgado por el Centro Universitario de Integración Humanística, CIUH, Estado de México. *2019. Premio Caracol de Plata. Otorgado por el Festival de Poesía Letras en la Mar. Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco.

Footnotes

External links

Official blog

Alberto Ruy-Sanchez: Mexican Author: Ecrivain mexicain
His main Site (in Spanish) with photos and more than a hundred texts, 30 on the author and 80 by him. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ruy-Sanchez, Alberto 1951 births Living people University of Paris alumni Mexican novelists Mexican male novelists Mexican essayists Mexican male essayists Academic staff of the University of Paris Stanford University faculty Writers from Mexico City Xavier Villaurrutia Award winners