Binacional literary conference back on

The XX Congreso Binacional Literario Letras en el Estuario 2021, an annual conference that brings renowned regional writers together to present their latest works in narrative and poetry writing, will take place at 2 p.m. Friday in the SET-B Lecture Hall on the Texas Southmost College campus in Brownsville.

Ateneo Literario José Arrese, an institution of writers in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico, and Texas Southmost College organized the event.

 Juan Antonio González, a professor of Spanish at TSC, said the purpose of the event is to follow what other generations have done before and will be dedicated to Roberto De la Torre-Hurtado, of Voces de la Frontera. 

“Bringing the best and brightest of those that have exceeded in the development of the writing through poetry and have them as examples for our students so that they could see that if you are committed and you have the necessary interest in the area … then one can excel in and perhaps elaborate, little by little, [on] what is the literature of the area we live in,” González said. 

Last year, they were not able to hold the conference in person due to COVID-19 restrictions. 

“We skipped last year, but we are continuing with the 20th time we present the binacional conference [in person],” González said.

At 3 p.m. Friday the poesía-narrativa panel will be moderated by Javier Villarreal, professor emeritus of Spanish at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. The panel consists of Perlita Salazar, Harmony School of Innovation; Miriam Romero, Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont; Yokebed Valdez and Diana Cortez Castro, Texas Southmost College. 

The panel for poesía-narrativa will continue at 4 p.m. Friday with moderator Ramiro Rodríguez, Ediciones ALJA and will feature Gabriel González Núñez, an associate professor of translation, Brownsville and Edna Ochoa, associate professor in the Department of Literatures and Cultural Studies at UTRGV. 

Presentación de Antología: Voces en la Frontera, Ediciones Monarca will begin at 5:25 p.m. and Poesía-Narrativa at 6 p.m. with moderator Elías David of the University of Houston. The panel will consist of Villarreal and Rodríguez; Elvia Ardalani, a professor of Spanish and creative writing at UTRGV; Federico Fernández, writer, of Matamoros; and Santiago Daydí-Tolson, professor emeritus of Spanish at the University of Texas at San Antonio. 

Asked what the difference is between the panels, González replied, “It’s more or less the same because the different authors have different words to present to the public and actually some of them have even presented a chapter in a novel, not necessarily a short story or a vignette in a collection of vignettes in the book. But, yes, it’s either prose or poetry, the presentations.”

Starting at 7 p.m., Lauro Zavala, a professor at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Ciudad de México, will deliver the keynote address about theory of short story writing. 

“That’s one of the specialties and he’s going to go over the different models of the short stories, the traditional model that evolved after midcentury, last century, and then he’s going to move into the other areas of narrative that have preceded,” González said. 

Other topics Zavala will present include distinction between classical, modern and postmodern short stories.

“He wants to distinguish the different structure formats, or the short stories,” González said. “The beginning, the narrative voice, the main characters in the different styles, elements of time, space, language and also intellectual nature of the story, as well as how they end because they all have evolved and they have a wide variety of forms and formats.” 

He said Zavala has been able to see how people write in a different area and generation and then make the theory that that generation itself has a variety of modes. 

“I think he is the expert on it,” González said. “He is an authority, worldwide recognized, so we’re looking forward to listening to him and he knows all the details that he can master as far as the different characteristics, all the different genres that have evolved over the years.”

He said the public is invited to attend the presentations. 

“They’re the best writers that we have been able to gather in our area and … from different places,” González said. “And the keynote speaker is also one of the best that we have been able to invite. So, we’re very happy and we’d like to share it with them.”