Luis CHAVES

Luis Chaves’ first novel was a kind of self-fiction that left many loose ends untied. His project aims to pick up where he left off to create a second novel. To achieve this, he uses a writing methodology which involves working on raw material he has collected and expanding it into ideas. This raw material includes sketches, notes, photographs, poetic images, conversations overheard on public transport and passages from conversations. This second novel is based on personal experience that will be treated later as fiction. It raises questions around identity, the idea of belonging to a place, the interior logic of traveling confronted with the idea of escaping from something.

Luis Chaves is a poet, novelist, chronicler and translator. Chaves’ works have been published in Costa Rica, Mexico, Argentina, Spain, Germany, Italy and Slovenia. His books include Los animales que imaginamos (1997, awarded the Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz Poetry Prize, Mexico), Chan Marshall (2005, awarded the Fray Luis de Leon Poetry Prize, Spain) and La máquina de hacer niebla (National Poetry Prize, Ministry of Culture, Costa Rica, 2012). His short novel Salvapantallas was recently published by the prestigious publishing house Seix Barral. In 2003, the translation of his poems into Italian (by Raffaella Raganella) won the international prize awarded by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio de Ascoli Piceno. In Germany, Hochroth Verlag has published two translations (by Timo Berger) into German of his poetry: Das Foto (2012) and Hier drunter liegt was Besseres (2013). Translations into English (by Julia Guez and Samantha Zighelboim) were included in the October 2015 issue of legendary POETRY Magazine, PEN American Poetry Series and Circumference. The Akademie Schloss Stuttgart in Germany awarded him the Jean Jacques Rousseau grant in 2011. He was a 2015 fellow for the DAAD Artists in Berlin Program.

CHAVES, Luis La máquina de hacer niebla  (Spain, Ed. Isla de Siltolá, 2012): National Poetry Prize 2012 of Costa Rica awarded by the Ministry of Culture.

CHAVES, Lui Parler peu, traduction de l’espagnol (Costa-Rica) par Anna Thibert. Editions Hochroth, Paris