Marie-Lise Gazarian

A graduate of Columbia University, Dr. Marie-Lise Gazarian is Professor of Spanish and Latin American Literature, Coordinator of the Graduate Program in Spanish at St. John's University and Moderator of Epsilon Kappa, St. John's Chapter of Sigma Delta Pi, the National Hispanic Honor Society. She served for twelve years as Vice President of Sigma Delta Pi for the Northeast. In 2001 she was awarded the Order of Don Quixote. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Entre rascacielos, a literary journal founded in the fall of 2001 and published by the St. John's Chapter of Sigma Delta Pi. She has been instrumental in establishing the Gabriela Mistral Scholarship /Beca Gabriela Mistral at St. John's University, as part of the Graduate Program in Spanish. She was appointed Representative of the Fundacisn Premio Nsbel Gabriela Mistral in New York.

She has had a long-standing experience in the promotion of Hispanic culture in the United States, for which she received the Al Mirito Cultural award from the Government of Spain, in 1981, and a Citation of Honor from the Honorable Claire Shulman, President of the Borough of Queens, in 1991 and 2000. She was appointed Cultural Ambassador of Ecuador to the United States in 1999. She was the recipient of a Certificate of Special Recognition from the US Congress in 1997 and a Certificate of Congressional Recognition from the Government of Ecuador in 2000. She served on the panel of judges that selected the first and second Poet Laureates from the Borough of Queens, in 1997 and 2001.

Dr. Gazarian is the author of countless articles and several books: Gabriela Mistral, la maestra de Elqui, 1973, 1992; Gabriela Mistral, the Teacher from the Valley of Elqui, 1974; Interviews with Latin American Writers, 1989, 1992; Interviews with Spanish Writers, 1991, 1992; Fernando Rielo: un dialogo a tres voces, 1995, 2000, with a translation into English in 2001; Ana Marma Matute: La voz del silencio, 1997; Carmen Conde de viva voz, in collaboration with Zenaida Gutiirrez-Vega, 1992; and she is the editor of Entre rascacielos: Nueva York en nueve poetas, 1999 and Entre rascacielos / Amidst Skyscrapers, a bilingual anthology of Hispanic poets residing in the Greater New York area, 2000.

Dr. Gazarian is a specialist in the works of Gabriela Mistral, Camilo Josi Cela, Carmen Conde and Ana Marma Matute. She teaches the following courses: Spanish 109 (Spanish Stylistic); Spanish 118 (Contemporary Spanish-America); Spanish 237 (Spanish-American Modernism); Spanish 238 (Spanish Women Writers from Spain); Spanish 239 (Women Writers of Spanish America); Spanish 248 (Indian Themes in Spanish-American Literature); Spanish 250 (The Spanish-American Novel from the 1950s Onward); Spanish 305 (Seminar in Hispanic Literature).

Gazariam@stjohns.edu