Manuel Zapata Olivella Author

Manuel Zapata Olivella (1920–2004), hailed by critic Richard Jackson as “the dean of Black Hispanic writers,” was the author of more than a dozen novels as well as numerous essays and short stories, including A Saint Is Born in Chimá and Chambacú, Black Slum. One of six children in a Colombian literary family, Zapata Olivella initially pursued medical training at the National University of Bogotá but interrupted his studies to write and travel. From the 1940s through the 1990s he explored not only the folklore and ethnography of his native country but an expansive range of international social and political themes. His work garnered prestigious literary awards worldwide, including the Símon Bolívar Prize, the Casa de las Américas Prize, and the Parisian Human Rights Prize.

Jonathan Tittler is Professor Emeritus of Hispanic Studies at Rutgers University–Camden. He holds a Ph.D. in Hispanic literature from Cornell University and is the author of four books, including the political-literary biography El verbo y el mando: Vida y milagros de Gustavo Alvarez Gardeazábal (Language and Power: The Life and Times of Gustavo Alvarez Gardeazábal) and numerous articles in the field of contemporary Latin American literature. He has previously translated two Afro-Hispanic novels into English: Juyungo, by Adalberto Ortiz, and Chambacú, BlackSlum, also by Zapata Olivella. A previous edition of this translation (Chango, the Biggest Badass, Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech University Press, 2010) was awarded Honorable Mention in the 2011 competition for the MLA Lois Roth Prize for Translation of a Literary Work.