Pineda Receives Malcolm Lowry Fine Arts Literary Essay Award
Adela Pineda, Director of the Latin American Studies Program at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, recently received the Premio Bellas Artes de Ensayo Literario Malcolm Lowry (Malcolm Lowry Fine Arts Literary Essay Award) from the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes.
Pineda, who was announced as the winner of the prize in November, won the prize for her manuscript Las Travesías de John Steinbeck Por México, El Cine y Las Vicisitudes Del Progreso. You can watch her accept the prize below:
The essay approaches several works by Steinbeck, including the novella The Pearl,(1947), the novel The Wayward Bus (1947); the travelogue The Log of the Sea of Cortez,(1941), as well as three cinematographic productions: The Forgotten Village, directed by Herbert Kline (1941), the adaptation of The Pearl, directed by Emilio Fernández (1948), and Viva Zapata!, directed by Elia Kazan (1952).
More than an exclusive analysis of literary and cinematic representation, Pineda’s essay offers readers a panorama of the transnational contexts in which the mentioned works and films emerged. It also considers Steinbeck’s literary work in relation with film and Mexico. Through archival research, the essay weaves together the ideological tendencies which informed both Steinbeck’s novels from this period and the film production, and gives an account of the political, social and economic determinants which formed the conditions in which they were produced. The essay distinguishes Steinbeck’s agency during this historical framework. As such, the approach has more to do with writing an intellectual history of Mexican-U.S. relations with Steinbeck as protagonist, than with an analysis exclusively focused on film and literature.
The Malcolm Lowry Essay Prize is granted by the National Institute of Fine Arts in Mexico (Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes). The essays/manuscripts that are considered are based on any foreign author who wrote on Mexico or was involved with Mexican Culture. The prize has been awarded to important writers in previous years such as Jose Emilio Pacheco and Ignacio Padilla.
Pineda’s research interests focus on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Spanish American literature, culture, and film and on the relationship between politics and culture. Learn more about her here.