3rd Annual Distinguished Lecture

Dr. Julieta Campos was born in Havana, Cuba in 1932. After completing undergraduate studies at the University of Havana in 1952, she spent a year on scholarship at the Sorbonne in Paris and received a certificate in contemporary French literature. Ms. Campos returned to Cuba and received a PhD from the University of Havana in 1955, and shortly thereafter emigrated to Mexico.In the next years she collaborated in magazines, including Octavio Paz’s Plural , editing the important literary journal Revista de la Universidad de Mexico , and translated numerous works of fiction and nonfiction into Spanish. Dr. Campos has traveled extensively in Europe, Latin America, and North America. She was elected president of the P.E.N. Club of Mexico in 1978.

Julieta Campos has gained wide acclaim for both her fiction and her literary criticism. Her novels include Death by Water , A Redhead Named Sabina (for which she won the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize in 1976), Celina or the Cats , and Fear of Losing Eurydice . Collections of criticism have been published as The Mirror’s Eye , The Novel’s Function , and The Persistent Legacy .

In the 1992 Mortenson Distinguished Lecture Dr. Campos discussed the clash between the values of the industrial and traditional societies and the ensuing cultural and economic poverty for those who are losing the battle—namely, those living in traditional societies.