“Today there is a very touching alliance created by a generation or two of writers who are very kind, very sensitive, very happy to share materials and experiences; Some of them even have the experience of living in other countries,” he told this news outlet.
Poet, researcher, university professor, and literary critic, Velázquez is widely recognized primarily for her contributions to writing, publishing, teaching, and supporting youth.
In the field of poetry, she is considered one of the most important voices in Bolivian poetry in the 21st century.
Velásquez studied literature at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés and later earned a master’s degree and a doctorate in Hispano-American literature from the Colegio de México.
As the initiator of the Street Poetry Festival that took place in the city of La Paz between 2005 and 2009, a year later she launched the project La crítica y el poeta, an initiative dedicated to the research and study of Bolivian poetry and by 2016 eleven contributed monographs.
For his contributions he has been awarded the International Writing Program Scholarship in Iowa, USA (1997), the Yolanda Bedregal National Poetry Award (2007), and the Insignia Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters of the Republic of France (2017) .
Referring to the current situation of letters in Latin America and the Caribbean, he commented that there was a very fertile moment for solidarity among writers.
“Latin American literature is experiencing a privileged moment – he reflected – after 30 years we are experiencing a renewal across the continent and we are again achieving translations that achieve widespread circulation”.
However, he lamented: “We still have a complicated debt because we need Spain to publish the works so we can read each other; The day we break that limitation, we will achieve great success.”
He stressed that “for the time being, the works arrive in triangulated form from Spain”.
He insisted that creating publishers “that represent us” in the region was an enormous challenge.
“The first thing we should do in Latin America and the Caribbean would be to unite, all work together for a transnational publishing house that will publish and distribute us in our countries, it would be a great achievement to achieve integration in this field reach of literature and culture in general,” concluded the Bolivian intellectual.
Velázquez held a conference on young Argentine writers at that country’s embassy in Bolivia, presented by the head of the diplomatic mission, Ariel Basteiro.
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