Roberto González Echevarría

Roberto González Echevarría's picture
Title: 
Sterling Professor of Spanish and Portuguese and Professor of Comparative Literature
Address: 
320 York St, New Haven, CT 06511
+1 (203) 432-1153

Biography

Born and raised in Cuba, naturalized American citizen. In 1999 was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Symposium in Honor of RGE, Universidad de Puerto Rico, Arecibo, November 21-23, 2002. Issue in Honor of RGE: Encuentro de la Cultura Cubana (Madrid),  no. 33 (2004). Presidential Honor: National Humanities Medal, 2010.  Taught at Yale (1970-71) Cornell (1971-77), where he one of first editors of Diacritics; since 1977 at Yale, where he was awarded the first endowed chair in Spanish (R.Selden Rose). In 1991 named Bass Professor of Hispanic and Comparative Literature, and in 1995 Sterling Professor. He chaired Spanish and Portuguese (16 years) and also chaired Latin American Studies. RGE has lectured throughout the US, Europe, and Latin America, and was first Hispanist at the School for Criticism and Theory.  In 2002 he delivered the DeVane Lectures, Yale’s most prestigious series. In 2003 seminars at Columbia. Cervantes Lecture at MLA 2004. Since 2005 has spoken at Boston U., Wisconsin, Salamanca, Alcalá de Henares, Rome, Munich, Universidad Católica de Chile, Colegio de México, Heidelberg, Oxford, etc.

A speaker of Spanish, English, French and Italian, RGE is interested in Spanish, Latin American, French, and Italian literatures.  He is on the board of  The Yale Review. Currently or formerly on the boards of Hispanic Review, Hispania, Revista Iberoamericana, and other journals in the US and abroad. Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Senior NEH Fellowship. 

His Myth and Archive: A Theory of Latin American Narrative (Cambridge, 1990) won awards from the Modern Language Association of America and the Latin American Studies Association. His C-D Rom Miguel de Cervantes received a prize from Choice. The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball (Oxford, 1999) won the first Dave Moore Award (Most Important Book on Baseball, 2000). In 2014 he was awarded the National Prize for Criticism by the Instituto Cubano del Libro for Lecturas y relecturas.

 Other books: Relecturas (1976), Calderón and la crítica (1976), Alejo Carpentier: The Pilgrim at Home (1977), Isla a su vuelo fugitiva: ensayos críticos sobre literatura hispanoamericana (1983), The voice of the Masters: Writing and Authority in Modern Latin American Literature (1985), La ruta de Severo Sarduy (1986) and Celestina’s Brood (1993). Co-edited three-volumeCambridge History of Latin American Literature (1996) and edited Oxford Book of Latin American Short Stories (1997). In 1999 Almar (Salamanca) published En un lugar de La Mancha: estudios cervantinos en honor de Manuel Durán, co-edited with Georgina Dopico-Black. Mexico’s Fondo de Cultura Económica published a Spanish version of Myth and Archive, and Colibrí in Madrid one of Celestina’s Brood. In 2002 Fondo de Cultura brought out Crítica práctica/Práctica, a collection of essays on Latin American Literature. In 2005 Yale Press published Love and the Law in Cervantes and Oxford Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote: A Casebook.  In 2008 Renacimiento, in Seville, brought out Oye mi son: testimonios y ensayos sobre literatura hispanoamericana, Verbum in Madrid Cartas de Carpentier, and Gredos Amor y ley en Cervantes.  In 2009 Yale published Fernando de Rojas, La Celestina, ed. RGE,  tr. Margaret Sayers Peden.  Yale published Cuban Fiestas in 2010 and a new translation of Lope de Vega’s Fuenteovejuna with an introduction by RGE.  In 2014 the University of Minas Gerais, in Brazil, published Monstros e archivos, a collection of his essays in Portuguese translation.  In 2014 the Yale University Press published his Cervantes’ Don Quixote, derived from the on-line course.  In 2016 Yale University Press published his edition of Cervantes’Exemplary Novels, translated by Edie Grossman.

Education

University of South Florida, 1964
M.A. Indiana University, 1966
MPh. Yale, 1968
Ph.D. Yale, 1970
Honorary Doctorate, Colgate, 1987
Honorary Doctorate, University of South Florida, 2000
Honorary Doctorate, Columbia, 2002

Research Interests

Golden Age Spanish Literature; Cervantes; Colonial and Modern Latin American literature; American literature; French and Italian literature; literary theory

Research Interests: 
Critical Theory and Philosophy
Fiction
Latin American Literature
Literary Theory
Modernism
Poetry
Romance Languages
Working Languages: 
French
Italian
Latin
Portuguese
Spanish