Recent Interviews
NPR, Time Magazine, WAMU Radio, Washingtonian, El Universal, Caretas (Peru), and others interview Marie about Bolívar, the process of writing, and the Latin American character. WAMU RADIO: Click here for the WAMU interview with Jonathan Wison conducted in Marie’s office at the Library of Congress. QUOTE: “You begin to think about power and how people…
Read MoreMarie’s NPR Interview
“George Washington threw colonialists out of one country,” says the NPR, “but Simon Bolivar liberated six from Spanish rule.” In the interview that aired on April 13, the interviewer goes on to say: “Marie Arana has written a biography of the warrior statesman whose name is often invoked, but whose history is little understood. It’s called Bolivar:…
Read MoreThe Kids Left Behind by the Boom, The New York Times
Guest Columnist By Marie Arana Henrry Ochochoque is a jovial 12-year-old with a report card full of A’s and hopes pointed straight to the moon. Last year, he moved from the squalid gold-mining town of La Rinconada, Peru — at nearly 17,000 feet above sea level, the highest human habitation in the world — to…
Read MorePremiere of “Girl Rising”
Girl Rising is a groundbreaking film, written in part by Marie, and directed by Oscar nominee Richard Robbins. The segment on Senna, a little girl who lives in the highest habitation in the world—the Peruvian gold mining town of La Rinconada—was written by Marie after traveling 18,200 feet up into a remote corner of the Andes.…
Read MoreEarly reviews for “Bolívar: American Liberator”
“Finally, Bolivar gets the sweeping biography he deserves. He was the greatest leader in Latin American history, and his tale is filled with lessons about leadership and passion. This book reads like a wonderful novel but is researched like a masterwork of history.” (Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs ) “This is a magnificent story. Deeply researched…
Read MoreMarie visits the highest human habitation in the world
La Rinconada, a gold mine at 18,000 feet in Peru, is the subject of this probing article, titled “Dreaming of El Dorado.” Marie traveled there to meet a young girl, Senna, and write a script for the forthcoming movie “Girl Rising.” The accompanying photographs are by Gina Nemirofsky of The Documentary Group in Los Angeles.…
Read MoreArticle in El País
Marie’s comments on the Latin American “Boom” appeared in the Madrid newspaper El País on November 18. No fue un boom de escritores sino de lectores La escritora y crítica peruana-estadounidense evoca cómo Cortázar le despertó el interés por la identidad “El peor legado del boom ha sido la falta de imaginación que provocó en…
Read MoreVirginia Quarterly Review
Marie has edited the Fall issue of the VQR (magazine published by UVA). Theme: “The Female Conscience,” featuring work by Jean Bethke Elshtain, Judith Warner, Joyce Carol Oates, Sylvia Earle, Mindy Aloff, Jonathan Yardley, Robin Marantz Henig, Reeve Lindbergh, Manal Al-Sharif, and many others. See more here.
Read MoreMarie reviews Paul Auster
“You think it will never happen to you,” Paul Auster writes at the very start of this incandescent memoir. “That it cannot happen to you, that you are the only person in the world to whom none of these things will ever happen, and then, one by one, they all begin to happen to you,…
Read MoreNational Book Festival
Marie will be interviewing Mario Vargas Llosa at 4:25 p.m., Sunday, Sept. 23 on the Capital Mall at the National Book Festival. There are many other reasons to be there: Robert Caro, Marilynne Robinson, Jeffrey Eugenides, T.C. Boyle, John Lewis Gaddis . . . See www.loc.gov/bookfest for details.
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