David Unger

Guatemalan-born David Unger is the author of Life in the Damn Tropics (Syracuse University Press, 2002, Wisconsin University Press, 2004, [Vivir en el maldito trípico. Random House Mondadori, Mexico, 2004; Recorded Books 2005; Locus Publishing, Taiwan, 2006 and Yingpan Brother Publishing, China, 2007]). His short stories have appeared in Playboy Mexico (October 2005), Currents from the Dancing River: New Writing By Latinos (New York: Harcourt), Tropical Synagogues: Latin American Jewish Fiction (New York: Holmes and Meiers), and in literary journals here and abroad. His new novel, In My Eyes, You Are Beautiful, has just begun making the rounds with publishers. He has translated eleven books, among them Teresa Cárdenas's Letters to My Mother (Groundwood Books, 2006), Rigoberta Menchú's The Honey Jar (Groundwood Books, 2006) and The Girl from Chimel (Groundwood Books, 2005), Ana María Machado's Me in the Middle (Groundwood Press, 2002), Silvia Molina's The Love You Promised Me (Curbstone Press,1999 Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize and shortlisted for the 2001 IMPAC Prize); The Popol Vuh (Groundwood Press, 1999); Elena Garro's First Love (Curbstone Press); Bárbara Jacobs' The Dead Leaves (Curbstone Press); and Nicanor Parra's Antipoems: New and Selected (New Directions). He is the recipient of several prizes including the 1998 Ivri-Nasawi Institute Poetry Prize, and he shared in the 1997 ALTA Translation Prize for Roque Dalton's Small Hours of the Night (Curbstone Press). He serves on the advisory board of Críticas Magazine, Curbstone Press and the Multicultural Review. He teaches Translation in the City College of New York's MFA Program. Life in the Damn Tropics: A Novel (Paperback) by David Unger