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Homero Aridjis, one of Latin America's foremost literary figures, is also one of its leading environmentalists. Many of his forty-five books of poetry and prose have been translated into fifteen languages, and his writing has been recognized with important literary prizes in Mexico, Italy, France, the United States, and Serbia. Formerly Mexican Ambassador to Switzerland, The Netherlands, and, most recently, UNESCO, during six years he was international president of PEN International and is now president emeritus. As founder (in 1985) and president of the Group of 100, an environmentalist association of writers, artists, and scientists, he has received awards from the United Nations (Global 500 Award), the Orion Society, Mikhail Gorbachev and Global Green USA and the Natural Resources Defense Council.He has been a visiting professor at Indiana, New York, and Columbia universities and the University of California, (Irvine). His most recent books are the novel Esmirna en llamas (Fondo de Cultura Economica), Noticias de la Tierra, (with Betty Ferber), a collection of his writings and pioneering work on the environment (Random House Mondadori), Tiempo de ángeles/A Time of Angels (Fondo de Cultura Económica and City Lights) and Del cielo y sus maravillas, de la tierra y sus miserias (Fondo de Cultura Económica). Eyes to See Otherwise (New Directions), Solar Poems (City Lights) and 1492 The Life and Times of Juan Cabezon of Castile (University of New Mexico Press) are among other books available in English.
Betty Ferber (Aridjis) born in New York and a graduate of Bryn Mawr College has served as the International Coordinator of the Grupo de los Cien (Group of 100) since its founding in 1985. She established and maintained contacts with individuals and organizations outside of Mexico and devised strategies for working together on issues as diverse as NAFTA, sea turtle protection, saving the gray whale birthing grounds at Laguna San Ignacio, monarch butterfly protection, opposition to dams on the Usumacinta River, the fate of tropical forests in Amazonia and Lacandonia, air pollution and climate change. Along with her husband, Homero Aridjis, she was honored by Mikhail Gorbachev and Global Green USA with the Green Cross Millennium Award for International Environmental Leadership. She has translated three novels by Homero Aridjis into English: 1492 The Life and Times of Juan Cabezon of Castile, The Lord of the Last Days: Visions of the Year 1000 and Persephone. With Canadian/Irish poet George McWhirter she coedited Eyes to See Otherwise, Selected Poetry of Homero Aridjis. With Homero Aridjis she organized three acclaimed international poetry festivals held in Mexico (Morelia, 1981, Mexico City, 1982 and 1987).
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