Research Summary
Professor Pellón’s major fields of teaching and research are the contemporary novel in Latin America, literary theory, and translation. He has published a book on the Cuban poet and novelist Lezama entitled: José Lezama Lima’s Joyful Vision, and many articles on leading Latin American writers including Gabriel García Márquez, Manuel Puig, Severo Sarduy, José Martí, and Julio Cortázar. Professor Pellón has contributed chapters to The Cambridge History of Latin American Literature, A History of Literature in the Caribbean, the Encyclopedia of Slavery and to the Encyclopedia of Cuba. Monte Ávila Editores in Caracas published the translation of his book on Lezama, La visión jubilosa de José Lezama Lima.
Pellón is the translator of short stories by Horacio Quiroga, Juan Bosch, Augusto Roa Bastos, and José Alcántara Almánzar among others. He also has translated Mariano Azuela’s Los de abajo published as The Underdogs: Pictures and Scenes from the Present Revolution ( Hackett Publishing Company, September 2006); The U.S.-Mexican War: A Binational Reader (Hackett Publishing Company, 2010); Mempo Giardinelli's novel An Impossible Balance, (Juan de la Cuesta, 2010). Most recently he has completed The Shadow of the Strongman, the first English translation of Martín Luis Guzmán’s novel La sombra del Caudillo (1929). He is currently working on the translation of José Martí’s novel Lucía Jerez.
Education
Ph.D., Comparative Literature, State University of New York at Binghamton (1981)
B.A., History and Comparative Literature, Brown University (1975)
Publications
Books
La visión jubilosa de José Lezama Lima: Un estudio sobre Paradiso y otras obras en prosa. Monte Ávila Editores Latinoamericana, 2005.
José Lezama Lima's Joyful Vision: A Study of Paradiso and Other Prose Works. U of Texas P, 1989.
Upstarts, Wanderers or Swindlers: Anatomy of the Picaro, A Critical Anthology. Edited and with an Introduction by Gustavo Pellón and Julio Rodríguez-Luis. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1986.
Translations
Martín Luis Guzmán. The Shadow of the Strongman (La sombra del Caudillo), Hackett Publishing Company, forthcoming in September 2017. https://hackettpublishing.com/latin-american-studies/the-shadow-of-the-strongman
Mempo Giardinelli, An Impossible Balance [Imposible equilibrio]. Juan de la Cuesta, Hispanic Monographs. (January 2010).
The US-Mexican War: A Binational Reader. Christopher Conway, Editor. Hackett Publishing Company. (March 2010).
Fernando Operé. Indian Captivity in Spanish America. [Historias de la frontera: el cautiverio en la América hispánica]. University of Virginia Press (January 2008).
Mariano Azuela. The Underdogs : Pictures and Scenes from the Present Revolution with Related Texts [Los de abajo]. Hackett Publishing Company (September 2006). First printing of 6,000 copies sold out. Second printing of 3,000, April 2013. Plus ebook versions.
Antonio Skármeta. "The Infinite Brunette." Virginia Quarterly Review. (Winter 2005): 305-309.
José Alcántara Almánzar.“With Dad at Madame Sophie’s” (short story) Callaloo, 23,3. (Summer 2000): 936-944.
Mempo Giardinelli. The Dance of the Hippos. (Excerpt of translation of Imposible equilibrio) Bomb Magazine. December 1999 (Special issue on Latin American Literature).
Luis Sepúlveda, El mundo del fin del mundo. Translation commissioned by Paramount Pictures.(Unpublished).
Víctor Farías, foreword to the Spanish edition of Heidegger and Nazism. In The Heidegger Case: On Philosophy and Politics. Eds. Tom Rockmore and Joseph Margolis. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1992.
In The Spanish American Short Story: A Critical Anthology. Ed. Seymour Menton. Berkeley: U of California P, 1980.
Humberto Arenal, "Mr. Charles."
Juan Bosch, "The Woman."
Ramón Ferreira, "A Date at Nine."
Horacio Quiroga, "The Dead Man."
José Revueltas, "God on Earth."
Augusto Roa Bastos, "The Prisoner."
Selected Grants & Awards (since 2010)
2016 Invited by Associate Dean for the Arts and Humanities, Francesca Fiorani and Robert Vaughn, President of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities to teach the South Atlantic Humanities Seminar for Doctoral Candidates.
June 2014. Lacey and John Colligan create a fund to support my research in memory of their daughter Austin Colligan, who was my student and advisee for the Spanish Distinguished Major.
February 2014. The Development Office informed me that an alumna made a donation to the college in my honor.
2011 (Fall) Sesquicentennial Associate, University of Virginia.
2011 (Spring) All-University Teaching Award.
For a full list of Professor Pellón's publications and awards for research and teaching, please Consult his C.V.