Latin American exiles in London, and Mormon emigration to the United States.

The Eccles Centre’s Summer Scholars season of free in-person lunchtime talks explores the exciting and wide-ranging research into the Americas collections at the British Library by the Eccles Centre’s Fellows and Award winners. The talks take place in the British Library Entrance Hall bookshop and attendees are welcome to bring their lunch.

Tropic of London

With Tropic of London, Javier Montes completes a trilogy that includes Stranded in Rio and Luz del Fuego. All three volumes are mixes of literary quest, narrative essay and fiction based on historical episodes and characters. This third volume reconstructs a brilliant episode of cultural cross-pollination in the United Kingdom: the fruitful exiles or stays in London, after the military coups of the 1960s in Latin America, of great musicians, writers and artists from all over the continent.

Transatlantic Mormon Connections and Historical Fiction

In the 1840s thousands of British Mormon converts emigrated to the United States in search of a promised Zion. Naomi Krüger explores some of the stories that connect two very different cities (Preston, Lancashire and Nauvoo, Illinois), and discusses the challenges of drawing on both research and imagination to write historical fiction about this period.

Javier Montes is a novelist, essayist, and author of more than 10 books, the most recent being Luz del Fuego (Anagrama, 2020). His work has been recognised with the Anagrama Award, the Pereda International Award and the Civitella Ranieri Fellowship, and has been included in Granta’s anthology The Best Young Writers in Spanish. He collaborates with El País, Granta, Artforum, Texte zur Kunst and The Literary Hub and his work has been translated into English and six other languages.

Naomi Krüger is a writer and academic with an MA and PhD from Lancaster University. Her debut novel – May – was published in 2018 by Seren, and her short fiction has appeared in various literary journals and anthologies. She currently lectures in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Central Lancashire.

Image: Gal Costa – Brazilian Singer; Public domain / Arquivo Nacional Collection

This event is organised by the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library. The Eccles Centre exists to support and promote creative research and lifelong learning about the Americas, through the world-class collections of the British Library.

The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today.

Details