Creating and Belonging: Yara Rodriguez and Jessica Sequeira

A talk about how the connections between Latinamerica & UK has inspired writers in their careers and artistic development.

The connections between the UK and Latin America are built through those born in the UK to Latin American migrants or those who fall in love with Latin America and become adopted children from it. In this talk author Yara Rodriques Fowler, literary translator and author Jessica Sequeira talk to journalist Silvia Rothlisberger about these connections, and how it impacts their creative work and their sense of belonging.

Yara Rodrigues Fowler grew up in South London. Her first novel, Stubborn Archivist, was long-listed for the Dylan Thomas Prize 2020 and the Desmond Elliot Prize 2019. Yara was named one of The Observer’s ‘hottest-tipped’ debut novelists of 2019 and was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2019. Her second novel, there are more things, will be published in the in UK April 2020. Yara received the John C Lawrence Award from the Society of Authors for research to write there are more things. there are more things was shortlisted, as a work in progress, for the Eccles Centre and Hay Festival Writer’s Award 2019. She is also a part time climate justice organiser.

Jessica Sequeira has published the novel A Furious Oyster, the story collection Rhombus and Oval, the essay collection Other Paradises: Poetic Approaches to Thinking in a Technological Age and the hybrid work A Luminous History of the Palm. She has also translated many books by Latin American authors, and was awarded the Premio Valle Inclán for her translation of Sara Gallardo’s Land of Smoke. Currently she is a doctoral candidate at the Centre of Latin American Studies at the University of Cambridge.