There comes a time in every busy publishing factotum's life when she must head out into the wilds of America armed only with a Portuguese dictionary. And so it is that I find myself accompanying the Afro-Brazilian writer Conceiçáo Evaristo on a five-stop author tour of the United States.
Conceiçáo is the author of the acclaimed novel Ponciá Vicencio, and Host had the good fortune to publish Paloma Martinez-Cruz's English translation of the work earlier this year. When Conceiçáo mentioned a fondness for public speaking, hard work, and colossal retail stores, we knew what we had to do: arrange a stateside lecture tour.
Conceiçáo and I leave for Knoxville, Tennessee, early tomorrow morning, and I'll be posting on-the-road updates as time permits. When one of us gets eaten by a bear, you'll read it here first.
