Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish filmmaker who worked in France, Mexico, and Spain. He has been widely considered by many film critics, historians, and directors to be one of the great and more influential filmmakers of all time. Buñuel’s works were known for their avant-garde surrealism which were also infused with political commentary.
Juan Goytisolo Gay was a Spanish poet, essayist, and novelist. He lived in Marrakesh from 1997 until his death in 2017. He was considered Spain's greatest living writer at the beginning of the 21st century, yet he had lived abroad since the 1950s. On 24 November 2014 he was awarded the Cervantes Prize, the most prestigious literary award in the Spanish-speaking world.
Spanish literature generally refers to literature written in the Spanish language within the territory that presently constitutes the Kingdom of Spain. Its development coincides and frequently intersects with that of other literary traditions from regions within the same territory, particularly Catalan literature, Galician intersects as well with Latin, Jewish, and Arabic literary traditions of the Iberian peninsula. The literature of Spanish America is an important branch of Spanish literature, with its own particular characteristics dating back to the earliest years of Spain’s conquest of the Americas.
Dr. Luis Rafael Sánchez, a.k.a. "Wico" Sánchez is a Puerto Rican essayist, novelist, and short-story author who is widely considered one of the island's most outstanding contemporary playwrights. Possibly his best known play is La Pasión según Antígona Pérez, a tragedy based on the life of Olga Viscal Garriga.
José Emilio Pacheco Berny was a Mexican poet, essayist, novelist and short story writer. He is regarded as one of the major Mexican poets of the second half of the 20th century. The Berlin International Literature Festival has praised him as "one of the most significant contemporary Latin American poets". In 2009 he was awarded the Cervantes Prize for his literary oeuvre.
The art of motion-picture making within Spain or by Spanish filmmakers abroad is collectively known as Spanish Cinema.
Viridiana is a 1961 Spanish-Mexican film directed by Luis Buñuel and produced by Gustavo Alatriste. It is loosely based on the 1895 novel Halma by Benito Pérez Galdós.
The Exterminating Angel is a 1962 Mexican surrealist film written and directed by Luis Buñuel, starring Silvia Pinal, and produced by Pinal's then-husband Gustavo Alatriste. It tells the story of a group of wealthy guests who find themselves unable to leave after a lavish dinner party, and the chaos that ensues. Sharply satirical and allegorical, the film contains a depiction of the aristocracy that suggests they "harbor savage instincts and unspeakable secrets".
Simon of the Desert is a 1965 Mexican surrealist film directed by Luis Buñuel and starring Claudio Brook and Silvia Pinal. It is loosely based on the story of the ascetic 5th-century Syrian saint Simeon Stylites, who lived for 39 years on top of a pillar. The screenplay was co-written by Buñuel and his frequent collaborator Julio Alejandro.
María Zambrano Alarcón was a Spanish essayist and philosopher associated with the Generation of '36 movement. Her extensive work between the civic engagement and the poetic reflection started to be recognised in Spain over the last quarter of the 20th century after living many years in exile. She was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award (1981) and the Miguel de Cervantes Prize (1988).
Giannina Braschi is a Puerto Rican poet, novelist, dramatist, and scholar. Her notable works include Empire of Dreams (1988), Yo-Yo Boing! (1998) and United States of Banana (2011).
Lorna Dee Cervantes is an American poet and activist, who is considered one of the greatest figures in Chicano poetry. She has been described by Alurista as "probably the best Chicana poet active today."
Frederick A. de Armas is a literary scholar, critic and novelist who is Robert O. Anderson Distinguished Service Professor in Humanities at the University of Chicago.
Hispanism is the study of the literature and culture of the Spanish-speaking world, principally that of Spain and Hispanic America. It may also entail studying Spanish language and cultural history in the United States and in other presently or formerly Spanish-speaking countries in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific, such as Equatorial Guinea and the former Spanish East Indies.
Noël Ritter Valis is a writer, scholar and translator. She is a Professor of Spanish at Yale University.
Mercedes Pinto Armas was a Spanish writer. Her 1926 novel He is the basis of the Luis Buñuel film Él.
Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish filmmaker who worked in Spain, Mexico and France. Buñuel is noted for his distinctive use of mise-en scene, distinctive sound editing, and original use of music in his films. Often Buñuel applies the techniques of mise-en-scène to combine multiple single scenes within a film directed by him to represent more encompassing aspects of the film when viewed as a whole.
Francisca Rubio Gámez, better known by the pseudonym Fanny Rubio, is a Spanish professor, researcher, and writer, an expert in contemporary Spanish poetry.
Sultana Wahnón Bensusan is a Spanish essayist and literary critic, a professor at the University of Granada specializing in literary theory and comparative literature.
Purity Ada Uchechukwu is a Nigerian Hispanist, an associate professor of Spanish at the Department of Modern European Languages, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. Her linguistic research focuses on the Afro-Hispanic people, Spanish as a second language and its role in Africa and the United States. Uchechukwu is one of the motivating forces behind Hispanist scholarship in English-speaking sub-Saharan Africa.
