“I find human behavior fascinating. I find it interesting. I find all of it confusing, every single aspect of it.”
For the final episode of Season 2 of Writing Latinos, we talked with Karla Cornejo Villavicencio about her new novel, Catalina, published by One World. It is an engrossing read about a young woman named Catalina, who lived in Ecuador as a small girl, migrated to New York to live with her grandparents, attended Harvard University, and, by the novel’s end, finds herself flirting with a career in writing and publishing. We talked about the sorts of lessons we learn about Latin American history from our families and our professors, Catalina’s encounter with different kinds of Latinos at Harvard, as well as her desire for fame and stardom, and the differences between writing fiction and creative nonfiction, which was the genre of Cornejo Villavicencio’s first book, The Undocumented Americans, a finalist for a National Book Award. Thank you for listening to Season 2, and stay tuned for an announcement about Season 3!
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View a transcript of the episode here.
Credits:
Writing Latinos is a production of Public Books. The show’s host is Geraldo Cadava, co-editor-in-chief of the magazine, and show’s producer is Tasha Sandoval. Our theme music is “City of Mirrors” by Dos Santos.
Feature image: Photograph of Karla Cornejo Villavicencio © Talya Zemach-Bersin
