COLOMBIAGE 5TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION WITH SANTIAGO GAMBOA – 25th October 2012

Official press release in Spanish and English available here

As Colombiage gets ready to celebrate it’s fifth anniversary this Autumn, we are delighted to announce that Santiago Gamboa, one of Colombia’s most distinctive literary voices will be joining us to mark the occasion. Since its inception in 2007, Colombiage has been celebrating the work of some of the best Colombian writers, musicians and filmmakers; and given how important literature has been to our  cause – building bridges and facilitating dialogues between Colombia and the UK – we couldn’t think of a better way to embark on the next five years of our journey.

On this special evening, we will also be celebrating the UK publication of Santiago Gamboa’s latest novel Necropolis (his first to be translated in English) by Europa Editions. In Necropolis – regarded by many as his most ambitious novel yet - Gamboa displays the talent and inventiveness that have earned him a reputation as one of the leading figures in his generation of Latin American authors; and we are honoured to welcome him, Faber author Stav Sherez and translator Howard Curtis in a conversation about Necropolis and much more.

We will also be making a very special announcement on this day so stay tuned!

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Date: 25 October 2012

Place: Piano House  / 9 Brighton Terrace / London SW9 8DJ

Time: 7.30pm

Bookings: please note that access to this event is by invitation only. We have a limited number of complimentary tickets available to Colombiage followers so if you are interested in attending, please send an email to info@colombiage.com stating your full name and contact details. We will be allocating tickets on a first-come, first-served basis. We will also be giving some tickets away at the Brixton Come Together festival this weekend – look out for the Colombiage stand.

This event is kindly supported by:

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About the panelists

Santiago Gamboa Santiago Gamboa was born in Bogotá, Colombia. His debut novel, Páginas de vuelta (1995), established him as one of the most innovative voices in Colombian literature. He has since published seven novels and two collections of short stories. His journalism appears regularly in El Tiempo (Colombia) and Cromos, and he is a regular contributor to Radio France International. Previously Colombia’s cultural attache in New Delhi, he currently lives in Rome. He is the winner of the 2009 La Otra Orilla Literary Award.

Stav Sherez Stav Sherez lives in London and is the author of The Devil’s Playground (Penguin, 2004) which was shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey Dagger, The Black Monastery (Faber, 2009) and A Dark Redemption (Faber, 2012). He was previously a music journalist and has also written for The Daily Telegraph among others. He is currently the literary editor of the Catholic Herald.

Howard Curtis Howard Curtis has translated more than sixty books from Italian, French and Spanish. Apart from Santiago Gamboa’s Necropolis, his translations from Spanish include works by Luis Sepúlveda and Francisco Coloane. Howard Curtis’s translation of Solea, the final book in Jean-Claude Izzo’s Marseilles trilogy, was shortlisted for the French-American and Florence Gould Translation Prize in 2008.

Official press release in Spanish and English available here