Arturo Arias

Interests

Biography

Arturo Arias is Professor of Latin American Literature. He is a well-known expert on Central American literature, with a special emphasis on indigenous literature, as well as critical theory, race, gender and sexuality in postolonial studies. Prior to coming to Texas he was Greenleaf Visiting Professor of Latin American Studies at Tulane University. He has published Taking their Word: Literature and the Signs of Central America (2007), The Rigoberta Menchú Controversy (2000), The Identity of the Word(1998), and Ceremonial Gestures (1998), as well as a critical edition of Miguel Angel Asturias's Mulata (2000). 2001-2003 President of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), professor Arias co-wrote the film El Norte (1984), and has published six novels in Spanish. Twice winner of the Casa de las Americas Award for his fiction, and winner of the Ana Seghers Award for fiction in Germany, he was given the Miguel Angel Asturias National Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature in 2008 in his native Guatemala.