Resident Fellows

Pedro Antonio Valdez || Fall 2006

Dominican writer Pedro Antonio Valdez, Townsend Resident Fellow in 2006, is the author of Carnaval de Sodoma, La Rosa y El Sudario: Cuentos cortos, and Bachata del angel caido.

Valdez is recognized today as one of the most promising young authors in the Spanish-speaking area of the Caribbean. Born in 1968 in the city of La Vega in the Dominican Republic, Valdez’ work provides us with a critical and sophisticated perspective of the material and social transformations that have defined the lives of the people of this region during recent decades. His early collection of short stories, Papeles de Astarot, received an important literary prize. His first novel, Bachata del angel caido, was enthusiastically received by the main newspapers and literary magazines of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, receiving the prestigious Premio Nacional de Literatura in the Dominican Republic. His second novel, Carnaval de Sodoma, was given a wider audience across Latin America and Spain. In his literary works, Valdez addresses social, racial, ethnic, and political problems in contemporary Dominican society. His characters attempt to make sense of a history that seems to defy any kind of rationalization. In spite of this, his novels seem to outline a new way of adapting to the challenges that have been brought by democratic modernizatioin.

During his residency at Berkeley in the fall of 2006, Valdez taught a creative writing seminar in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, primarily directed to undergraduates interested in poetic expression including hip-hop. Valdez also gave a public lecture on the cultural history of the Caribbean, and delivered a reading of his most recent work.