Havana, Cuba
Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.Miami-Dade Community College, the
University of Miami
The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private university, private research university in Coral Gables, Florida, United States. , the university enrolled 19,852 students in two colleges and ten schools across over ...
, and the
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...
, where he earned a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature. He taught at
Duke University
Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...
from 1979 to 1999 and at Columbia University until 2022. He is currently the David Feinson Professor Emeritus of Humanities at
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
.
Pérez Firmat is the author of many books and essays on literature, philosophy, and culture. His poems, translations, critical and personal essays have appeared in many magazines, journals and anthologies. He has also published collections of poetry in English and Spanish. ''Next Year in Cuba'', a memoir, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in non-fiction in 1995. ''Life on the Hyphen'', a study of Cuban-American culture, was awarded the Eugene M. Kayden Award for 1994 and received Honorable Mention in the Modern Language Association’s Katherine Singer Kovács Prize and the Latin American Studies Association’s Bryce Wood Book Award.
Honors
Pérez Firmat is a member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...
and has been the recipient of fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Mellon Foundation. In 1995, Pérez Firmat was named Duke University Scholar/Teacher of the Year. In 1997 ''Newsweek'' included him among “100 Americans to watch for the 21st century” and ''Hispanic Business Magazine'' selected him as one of the “100 most influential Hispanics” in the United States. In 2004 he was named one of New York’s thirty “outstanding Latinos” by ''
El Diario La Prensa
''El Diario Nueva York'' is the largest and the oldest Spanish-language daily newspaper in the United States. Published by ImpreMedia, the paper covers local, national and international news with an emphasis on Latin America, as well as human-i ...
''. He was featured in the documentary ''CubAmerican'' and in the 2013 PBS series ''
Latino Americans
Hispanic and Latino Americans are Americans who have a Spaniards, Spanish or Latin Americans, Latin American background, culture, or family origin. This demographic group includes all Americans who identify as Hispanic or Latino (demonym), ...
Scholarly Works
* ''Idle Fictions'' (Duke, 1982; rev. ed. 1993)
* ''Literature and Liminality'' (Duke, 1986)
* ''The Cuban Condition'' (Cambridge, 1989; rpt. 2005)
* ''Do the Americas Have a Common Literature?'' (Duke, 1990)
* ''Life on the Hyphen'' (Texas, 1994, Rpt. 1996, 1999; revised and expanded edition 2012); Spanish version: ''Vidas en vilo'', Colibrí, 2000; rev. ed. Hypermedia, 2015)
* ''My Own Private Cuba'' (Colorado, 1999)
* ''Tongue Ties'' (Palgrave, 2003)
* ''The Havana Habit'' (Yale, 2010)
* ''The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature'' o-editor(Norton, 2010)
* ''A Cuban in Mayberry: Looking Back at America's Hometown'' (Texas, 2014)
*''Poesía romántica inglesa'' by Heberto Padilla ditor(Linden Lane Press, 2018)
*''Fuera del juego y otras poemas'' by Heberto Padilla o-editor with Yannelys Aparicio Molina(Ediciones Catédra, 2021)
*''Saber de ausencia. Lecturas de poetas cubanos (y algo más)'' (Renacimiento, 2022)
Creative Works
*''Carolina Cuban'' (Bilingual Press, 1987)
*''Equivocaciones'' (Betania, 1989)
*''Bilingual Blues'' (Bilingual Press, 1995)
*''Next Year in Cuba: A Cubano's Coming-of-Age in America'' (Doubleday 1995; rev. ed. 2000; rpt. Arte Público, 2005; Spanish version: ''El año que viene estamos en Cuba'', Arte Público, 1997)
* ''Cincuenta lecciones de exilio y desexilio'' (Universal, 2000; rev. ed. Hypermedia, 2016)
*''Anything But Love'' (Arte Público, 2000)
*''Scar Tissue'' (Bilingual Press, 2005)
*''The Last Exile'' (Finishing Line Press, 2016)
* ''Sin lengua, deslenguado'' (Ediciones Cátedra, 2017)
*''Viejo Verde'' (Main Street Rag, 2019)
*''The Mayberry Chronicles'' (Finishing Line Press, 2021)
References
www.gustavoperezfirmat.com *academia page: https://columbia.academia.edu/GustavoP%C3%A9rezFirmat
* Alonso Gallo, Laura. "Un largo archipiélago de otras incubaciones: La condición cubana del exilio en la obra de Gustavo Pérez Firmat." ''Revista Hispano Cubana'' 13 (2002).
* Álvarez Borland, Isabel. ''Cuban-American Literature of Exile: From Person to Persona.'' Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1998.
* Dalleo, Raphael, and Elena Machado Sáez. ''The Latino/a Canon and the Emergence of Post-Sixties Literature''. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. pp. 133–158.
* Figueredo, D.H. "Pérez Firmat, Gustavo (1949-)." ''The Encyclopedia of Caribbean Literature''. Vol. 2: M-Z. Edited by Danilo Figueredo. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006: 624-625.
* López, Iraida H., "The Notion of ''Volver'' in Cuban-American Memoirs: Gustavo Pérez Firmat's ''Next Year in Cuba'' as a Case of Mistaken Coordinates." South Atlantic Review 77.3-4 (2012): 59-76.
* Lowe, John Wharton. "Southern ''Ajiaco'': Miami and the Generation of Cuban American Writing." in ''Calypso Magnolia: The Crosscurrents of Caribbean and Southern Literature''. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016. 243-338.
* Luis, William, "Exiled Hyphenated Identities in Gustavo Pérez Firmat's ''Next Year in Cuba''." ''Cuban-American Literature and Art: Negotiating Identities''. Edited by Isabel Álvarez Borland and Lynette M. Bosch. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2009. 93-107.
* Rolando Pérez (Cuban poet). “Bilingual Blues.” (Gustavo Pérez-Firmat). ''Encyclopedia of Hispanic-American Literature''. Edited by Luz Elena Ramírez. NY: Facts on File 2008: 37-38.
* Torres, Rodolfo D., and Francisco H. Vázquez. ''Latino/a Thought: Culture, Politics, and Society.'' Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.