UPR honors two literary giants
 
ARECIBO –  The University of Puerto Rico’s Arecibo campus, now celebrating its 40th year, caused more than a few intellectuals to sit up and take notice as two literary superstars infiltrated their ranks in the small town for a weekend.
 
The event was dedicated to Puerto Rico’s favorite living author Luis Rafael Sánchez on his 70th birthday – with a visit from his friend Mario Vargas Llosa thrown in as a gift. The two men were presented with honorary doctorates for their work over the past half century. Vargas Llosa, who first came to Puerto Rico in 1969 to teach, turned 70 in March.
 
For Sánchez, who eschews computers, cell phones and even ITAL tertulias ITAL or literary bull sessions, the weekend was an orgy of tribute and elbow bending. He read his own essay “La forja de un lector,” and presented his colleague’s new book, “Travesuras de la niña mala.”
 
For Aníbal González Pérez, from Yale University, Sánchez is the “postmodern chronicler of Puerto Rico,” a description professor Gloria Waldman of York College –Graduate Center of City University of New York, agreed with in her presentation of his collection of essays on Puerto Rican life, “Devórame otra vez.”
 
In the 40 articles, the author “bares his soul and opens his heart and conscience to expose his concerns and values,” in Waldman’s words.
 
In her paper, “Destape borícua,” which she translates as “Puerto Rican Striptease,” she likens Sánchez’s self-revelatory essays to the freedom of expression in Spain after the death of Francisco Franco.
 
“Everything was permitted, everything was sexy, and there was an unveiling of everything that had been covered up for so long,” Waldman told Pure Bliss.
 
Also at the congress, a labor of love was presented by Luce López Baralt and Arturo Echavarría, two volumes of “Antologia de literature española.” The five-year task of compilation and criticism by Arecibo professor Priscilla Rosario and fragmentoimán publishing house was hailed by many professors as a much needed anthology, because of its excellent selection and careful editing.
 
The greatest laurels came from a native of Spain, who has taught Spanish literature for 17 years in the states.
 
“I might have been surprised to see a book like this come out of a small town in Puerto Rico, but not after being here at this congress, which has an excellent intellectual exchange,” said Fatima Serra, a professor at Salem College in Salem, Mass.
 
“The selections of the texts [in the anthology] is fabulous, because [Rosario] has included many complete shorter texts of well known authors, instead of the same excerpts included in other anthologies,” said Serra.
 
Waldman, too, was upbeat about the two thick white tomes.
 
“It is hard to explain the importance of a good anthology in the classroom, but those of us who have been using old anthologies know,” she told Pure Bliss. “This is a big deal in the academic world. There is real excitement.” said Waldman.