Bio

Eduardo Espina’s field of expertise is 19th, 20th and 21st century Latin America poetry and essay. Since his arrival at Texas A&M in 1987, after completing his Ph.D. in Spanish at Washington University in St. Louis, he has taught a variety of courses in Latin American literature, as well as professional and creative writing. At the graduate level, he offers seminars on different periods (Modernismo and early Avant-Garde, NeoBaroque, Post-Contemporaneity), individual writers (Borges, Octavio Paz, Onetti), and different trends in cutting-edge writing, from early Romanticism to current digital and sound poetry.

Professor Espina has published a dozen books of essays, literary criticism, and poetry, the most recent being: Las ideas hasta el día de hoy (Planeta, 2013), essays; and Quiero escribir pero me sale Espina (Cuarto Propio, 2014), poetry. In addition to his books, his publications include more than 40 academic articles and 100 book introductions, notes and reviews. He won the Premio Nacional de Ensayo of Uruguay twice for the books Las ruinas de lo imaginario, (1996) and Un plan de indicios (2000). In 1998 he received the Premio Municipal de Poesía. Doctoral dissertations have been written about his poetic works, and extensive academic articles have been published in top rate journals such as Revista Iberoamericana, Revista de Crítica Latinoamericana and Revista de Estudios Hispánicos. His poetry is included in more than 40 anthologies of international poetry and it is studied in universities in the United States, Europe, and Latin America. His poems have been translated to English, French, Italian, Portuguese, German, Albanian, and Croatian. In 1980, he was the first Uruguayan writer invited to participate in the prestigious International Writing Program at the University of Iowa.

In 2007, he was awarded the Texas A&M University Association of Former Students Distinguished Teaching Award. In February, 2008 he was one of the six professors of the College of Liberal Arts invited to participate in the Fasken-supported symposium “Passion and Practices: How to Inspire Students to Learn,” organized to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Center for Teaching Excellence.

In 2011, he won the Guggenheim fellowship in Poetry.

Research Interests

19th – 21st Century Latin American Poetry and Essay