About Our Contributors

Benjamin H. Cheever (benjamin200@aol.com) is the author of two novels, THE PLAGIARIST and THE PARTISAN (both Atheneum). He edited THE LETTERS OF JOHN CHEEVER (Simon and Schuster) and has published in The New Yorker, the New York Times, The Nation, Details, Lear’s, Reader’s Digest, and The Ladies’ Home Journal. At present, he is working on a book of nonfiction for The Free Press and finishing a novel for Crown. He lives in upstate New York with his wife, the film critic Janet Maslin, and two sons.

K. Callaway has published two books, HEART OF THE GARFISH (University of Pittsburgh) and THE BLOODROOT FLOWER (Knopf), and is assembling a long travel and historical meditation based on time spent in Asia, Eurasia, the Russian Far East, and the Indian sub-continent, and on points in-between where she has not been. Currently she is Visiting Poet at the University of South Dakota.

Fidelio is an admirer of Charles Lamb and the devisors of crossword puzzles forThe Guardian and Financial Times.

Henry Martin was born in Philadelphia and received degrees in English literature from Bowdoin College and New York University, where he also studied Romance languages extensively. He translates contemporary Italian literature and regularly contributes as a critic to a number of international art magazines, including Art News and Flash Art. In addition to his translations of Anna Maria Ortese (THE IGUANA; A MUSIC BEHIND THE WALL, Vols. One and Two) and Giorgio Manganelli (ALL THE ERRORS), he has written a number of books about art: two volumes in collaboration with the Italian artist Gianfranco Baruchello (HOW TO IMAGINE and WHY DUCHAMP, both published by McPherson & Company); art monographs on Arman, Adamio, and George Brecht; and various museum catalogues. Henry Martin lives with his wife, the artist Berty Skuber, and their son, John-Daniel, in the mountains of southern Tyrol not far from Bolzano, Italy.

Maria Negroni (mnegroni@criba.edu.ar) was born in Argentina in 1951. She holds a PhD in Latin American literature from Columbia University and was a Guggenheim Fellow. Three books of her poems have been published by Libros de Tierra Firme (Buenos Aires): DE TANTO DESOLAR (1985), PER/CANTA (1989) and LA JAULA BAJO EL TRAPO (1991). Her two latest collections of poetry, ISLANDIA and EL VIAJE DE LA NOCHE were published, respectively, in 1994, by Monte Avila Editores (Caracas) and Editorial Lumen (Barcelona). Bilingual editions are forthcoming of ISLANDIA (Station Hill Press) and LA JAULA BAJO EL TRAPO/CAGE UNDERCOVER (Sun & Moon Press). Ediciones Bajo la Luna Nueva (Buenos Aires) published CIUDAD GOTICA, her book of essays about poetry and contemporary culture in the US; her poems, essays and translations have been published in literary magazines in Latin America, North America, and Spain In 1996 she returned to Buenos Aires where she taught a seminar on Argentine poet Alejandra Pizarnik, which she will teach again at University of London during the spring term, 1997.

Anna Maria Ortese was born in Naples. Her first book, a collection of stories published in 1937, was acclaimed as the work of a major new magical realist. (The critical phrase “magical realism” was largely the invention of the writer Massimo Bontempelli, who is also credited with having discovered Ortese.) She has written more than a dozen volumes of stories, novels, and essays, and has been the recipient of Italian literary prizes, among them Strega, the Premio Viareggio, and the Fiuggi. Although for fifty years her writing reached relatively small audiences, her most recent works have appeared on the Italian bestseller lists. In 1986, her novel, THE IGUANA, appeared in an English translation by Henry Martin, published by McPherson & Company , who also publish two volumes of Ortese’s stories under the title A MUSIC BEHIND THE WALL, the second volume of which is is forthcoming. She now divides her time between Rapallo and Milan.

Frederic Tuten studied pre-Columbian art history at the University of Mexico and earned the PhD in American literature from New York University, where for fifteen years he directed the graduate writing program. His first novel, THE ADVENTURES OF MAO ON THE LONG MARCH, published in 1971, has just been reissued by Marion Boyars Publishers (New York and London). He is also the author of TALLIEN: A BRIEF ROMANCE (1988), and TINTIN IN THE NEW WORLD (1993). His newest novel, VAN GOGH’S BAD CAFE, has just been published by Morrow (New York) and Marion Boyars Publishers (London). In addition to writing for film, he has written about the Brazilian cinema; his reviews and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Vogue, and Art in America. Frederic Tuten is a Guggenheim Fellow and the winner of the DAAD Prize, with a residency in Berlin for 1997-98.

Anne Twitty’s (ATwitty@aol.com) translations of the book-length poems of Maria Negroni are forthcoming in the bilingual editions CAGE UNDERCOVER/LA JAULA BAJO EL TRAPO (Sun & Moon Press) and ISLANDIA (Station Hill Press). A selection of her translations from Negroni’s ISLANDIA appeared in The Paris Review (Spring 1994); another will appear soon in Mandorla. She has also translated the Cuban poet Magali Alabau (HERMANA/SISTER, Editorial Betania, 1992; LIEBE, La torre de Papel, 1993). Anne Twitty was for some years editor of the Epicycle section of Parabola, which published her essays on myth, creation, and memory.