His talks will be:
- “Reflections on the Day of the Dead,” 11 a.m. Oct. 23, Chao Auditorium, Ekstrom Library. He will discuss urban and rural traditions related to the autumn Mexican celebration of ancestors characterized by altars decorated with skeletons, sugar skulls, bread and colorful offerings.
- “Elusive Identities: The Arabic Presence in Mexican Culture,” the 11th annual Latin American and Latino Studies Heritage Lecture, 4:30 p.m. Oct. 24, Chao Auditorium, Ekstrom Library. He will trace ways in which diverse aspects of the Arabic world traveled from northern Africa to southern Spain, influencing the ancient Andalusi culture before coming to Mexico.
- “Por una poetica del asombro” 5:30 p.m. Oct. 25, Room 205, Bingham Humanities Building. He will discuss how his travels have influenced his own narrative fiction and will deliver his remarks in Spanish.
Ruy-Sanchez is editor and founding publisher of the Latin American arts magazine Artes de México and an author of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. His numerous visits to Morocco during three decades inspired him to write a series of five novels set in Mogador, the ancient name for the walled city of Essaouira on Africa’s north Atlantic coast.
Sponsors for his talks are the College of Arts and Sciences’s international, diversity and outreach programs; Latin American and Latino studies, liberal studies and Middle East and Islamic studies programs; anthropology department; classical and modern languages department’s modern language fund; Ekstrom Library’s special collections department and UofL’s Commission on Diversity and Racial Equality.
