James Cañón is a Colombian-American writer.[1] He's the author of the award-winning Tales from the Town of Widows. Cañón was born and raised in Ibagué, Colombia. He writes fiction primarily, though he has also written essays. His short stories and essays have been published in numerous magazines in the U.S., Belgium and France. He holds an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University.
Works
Books
Cañón's debut novel, Tales from the Town of Widows, (ISBN978-0061140389) was originally written in English, his second language. It was first published in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. by HarperCollins in 2007. Praised internationally as "An important contribution to American literature," the novel tells the story of Mariquita, a Colombian village that's forever altered the day a band of communist guerrillas takes out all but three of its men. Left to fend for themselves, the abandoned women slowly emerge from their supporting roles as wives and daughters to become unwitting founders of a radically socialist society, a metamorphosis that Kirkus Reviews has described as "Slyly pushing the envelope that Aristophanes opened with Lysistrata." Cañón's novel has been published in over twenty countries and translated into French, German, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Hebrew, Korean, Turkish, Arabic, Croatian and Polish. The film adaptation of it, called Without Men, was released in 2011. The cast included Eva Longoria and Chris Slater, and was directed by Gabriela Tagliavini. In 2020 an excerpt from a forthcoming book[2] appeared in Unpublishable, an anthology edited by Chris Molnar from Archway Editions/Simon & Schuster.[3]
Essays
Se Perdre (et se trouver) dans la Traduction, Les Assises Internationales du Roman 2008 : Le roman, quelle invention ! (Titres)
Andes Féminines, Libération Périodique 2008 : (Libération)
