Life and Fear in Latin America

Instituto Cervantes and the Oxford Literary Festival are delighted to present award-winning Peruvian novelist, screenwriter and journalist Santiago Roncagliolo as he talks about his work. Roncagliolo was deported from Peru to Mexico with his family when he was just two years old. Although the family later returned to their homeland, he is now based in Spain.

His work is characterised by psychological suspense and black humour and deals with fear in Latin American history and daily life. His novel Red April won the Alfaguara Prize and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.

His non-fiction work Memorias de una dama, which traces the origins of the mafia in Cuba, was censored and its publication is prohibited worldwide. Another of his well-known works is La pena máxima, a story set during the 1978 football World Cup at the time of the Argentinian dictatorship.

This event is part of the Festival’s Spanish and Latin American Programme and is aimed at the general public as well as readers of Roncagliolo.