publications

Dr. Cristina Pérez Díaz Book Launch Event 2/10/2023

Greetings!

Columbia University Classics Department is super excited & proud to announce the Book Launch of Dr. Cristina Pérez Díaz's new book Antígona by José Watanabe A Bilingual Edition with Critical Essays.

To celebrate this amazing achievement, we invite you to her book launch event happening on Friday, February 10, 2023, at 4:10p in 603 Hamilton Hall.

This book brings to English readers, in its entirety for the first time, a translation of José Watanabe’s Antígona, accompanied by the original Spanish text and critical essays.
The lack of availability in English has resulted in the absence of Antígona from important Anglophone studies devoted specifically to the reception of ancient Greek tragedy in the Americas. Pérez Díaz's translation fills this gap. The introduction provides the performative, political, and historical contexts in which the text was written in collaboration with the actress Teresa Ralli, from the Peruvian theater group Yuyachkani, who also originally performed it. Following the bilingual text, a critical essay provides an analysis of textual aspects of Antígona that have been disregarded, situating it in relation to Sophocles' Antigone and in conversation with relevant moments of the vast traditions of reception of the Greek tragedy. An appendix briefly surveys some notable productions of the play throughout Latin America.
This comprehensive volume provides an invaluable resource for readers interested in José Watanabe's work, students and scholars working on classical reception and Latin American literature and theatre, as well as theatre practitioners.