James Cañón

James Cañón (1968 - ) is a Colombian-American novelist.

Born and raised in Ibagué, Colombia, Cañón received his B.A in advertising from Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano [http://www.utadeo.edu.co/] of Bogotá. He moved to New York in the mid 1990s to study English, and later earned his MFA in creative writing from Columbia University [http://www.columbia.edu/] . His short stories and essays have been published in numerous magazines in the U.S. and France, and two of them have been anthologized in "Bésame Mucho", NY: Painted Leaf, and "Virgins, Guerrillas & Locas", SF: Cleis Press.

Works

Cañón's debut novel, "Tales from the Town of Widows & Chronicles from the Land of Men" (ISBN 0061140384), was originally written in English, his second language, and published in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. by HarperCollins [http://www.harpercollins.com/] in 2007. Praised internationally as “an important contribution to American literature,” the novel tells the story of Mariquita, a Colombian village that's forever altered the day a band of guerrillas takes out all but three of its men. Left to fend for themselves, the abandoned women slowly emerge from their supporting roles as wives and daughters to become unwitting founders of a radically socialist society, a metamorphosis Kirkus Reviews [http://www.kirkusreviews.com/kirkusreviews/index.jsp] has described as "slyly pushing the envelope Aristophanes opened with Lysistrata." Cañón's novel has been published in over twenty countries. The American School Library Journal [http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/] chose it as one of the “Ten Best Adult Books of the year for HS students.” It was also a finalist for both the 2008 Edmund White Fiction Award, and a 2008 Lambda Literary Award for Debut Fiction. Cañón is the recipient of the Henfield Prize for Excellence in Fiction, a fellowship in fiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts, and awards from the Queens Council on the Arts, the New York Urban Artist Initiative, and the U.S. National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts. He lives in Barcelona.

External links

* [http://www.jamescanon.com James Cañón's Official Web Site]
* [http://www.harpercollins.com/books/9780061140389/Tales_from_the_Town_of_Widows/index.aspx Harper Collin's Author's Page]
* [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/15/AR2007021501485.html Washington Post Review]
* [http://www.newyorker.com/arts/reviews/brieflynoted/2007/03/19/070319crbn_brieflynoted2 The New Yorker Review]
* [http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,22050099-5003900,00.html The Australian Review]
* [http://www.semana.com/wf_InfoArticulo.aspx?IdArt=105188 Semana Article]