October 24, 2007
Queens, N.Y. -
St. John’s University’s Department of Languages and Literatures
and Epsilon Kappa, the University’s chapter of the National Spanish
Honor Society, Sigma Delta Pi, will host an interview with
distinguished Spanish playwright, Fernando Arrabal on October
31. The event, hosted in Spanish, will take place on the
University’s Queens campus in St. John Hall, Room 439 at 4:30
p.m.
Dr. Marie-Lise Gazarian, professor of Spanish and an expert in
the art of interviewing, will converse with Arrabal in front of an
audience consisting of members of the Spanish Honor Society and the
Hispanic community. The author of some 14 books, Dr. Gazarian is
presently working on a book on Arrabal, an internationally-famous
literary figure and twenty-first century humanist.
Born in Melilla, Spanish Morocco, Fernando Arrabal Terán is an
internationally-renowned playwright, director and film
producer. He is also a novelist, essayist and poet, and his
works have been translated into many languages. Author of some
sixteen volumes of plays, his work has been performed all over the
world. His play Una doncella para una gorila (The Red Madonna or a
Damsel in Distress) premiered under his direction at the Intar
Theater, in New York, in 1986. Among his other plays are: Guernica,
1961 (Guernica and Other Plays, 1967); L’architecte et l’empereur
d’Assyrie, 1967 (The Architect and the Emperor of Assyria, 1969);
El extravagante triunfo de Jesucristo, Karl Marx y William
Shakespeare (The Extravagant Triumph of Jesus Christ, Karl
Marx and William Shakespeare,) 1982; and La Inquisición, 1982 (The
Inquisition, 1983).
He received the Nadal prize in 1983 for his novel La torre
herida por el rayo (The Tower Struck by Lightning, 1988). Some of
his other novels include: Champagne pour tous (2002); Ceremonia por
un teniente abandonado Ceremony for a Forsaken Lieutenant, 1998);
La piedra iluminada, 1985 (The Compass Stone, 1987); La vierge
rouge, 1986 (The Red Madonna, 1991); La hija de King Kong (King
Kong’s Daughter), 1988; Un esclavo llamado Cervantes, 1996 (A Slave
called Cervantes). He is also the author of a series of
letters: Carta al general Franco, 1972; Carta a Fidel Castro, 1984;
Carta a José María Aznar, 1993; and Carta al Rey de España, 1995.
Arrabal has received some of the most prestigious awards.
This event is free and open to the public.