Reading and Discussion with María Ospina, Carla Bessa, and 128 Lit’s Andrew Felsher

Join us for a reading and discussion between Colombian writer María Ospina, Brazilian writer Carla Bessa, and editor of 128 Lit, Andrew Felsher at Word Up Community Bookshop Librería Comunitaria. 

ABOUT THE WRITERS

María Ospina was born in Bogotá, Colombia. Her first book of fiction, the short story collection Azares del cuerpo (2017), has been published in Colombia, Chile, Spain, Italy and is now available in English as Variations on the Body (Coffee House Press, 2021). It was long listed for the Premio Hispanoamericano de Cuento Gabriel García Márquez in 2018. Her stories have appeared in several Colombian anthologies, as well as in literary magazines that include Revista PenÚltima, The Literary Review and The Harvard Review. She is also the author of the book El rompecabezas de la memoria: Literatura, cine y testimonio de fin de siglo en Colombia which examines Colombian cultural production of the past two decades in light of legacies of violence and war. She is currently writing a novella about non-human animal migrations (forthcoming 2023, Random House Mondadori). She’s an Associate Professor of Latin American culture and creative writing at Wesleyan University and spends her time between New Haven, CT and the Colombian Andes.

Carla Bessa studied Theatre in Rio de Janeiro. In 1991 she relocated to Germany and worked as an actress for 15 years. Since 2014, she has been working as a literary translator for Brazilian publishing houses. In 2017 her first collection of short stories was published. In 2020 she won the Jabuti Prize, the most important award of Brazilian literature, for her second book, “Urubus” (Confraria do vento, 2019). In 2021 “Minha Murilo”, a novella, was published (Urutau). In 2021 “Urubus” was released in Germany (Transit Verlag) and “There I was without this son” was released in Greece (Skarifima Editions).

128 Lit is a new annual print and online literary magazine based in New York City that has an international focus. The mission of 128 Lit is to publish work that evokes something that hasn’t been evoked before. Without a fixation on pre-determined theme or style, we seek poetry, fiction, translation, novel excerpts, essays, hybrid pieces, interviews and art. We’re committed to publishing pieces that startle, disrupt, and move. We want the pages to happen to the reader and viewer. 128 Lit was founded by writer, Andrew Felsher, and artist/filmmaker, Yehui Zhao. 

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