Latin American Literature, stories and poems with Luis Othoniel Rosa, Sarah Banderas & Iliana Rosabal Perez

Join us on Friday, May 2nd as we welcome three talented writers Luis Othoniel Rosa, Sarah Banderas & Iliana Rosabal Perez to Francie & Finch Bookshop for a night of poetry and storytelling!

About the Authors:
Luis Othoniel Rosa (Bayamón, Puerto Rico, in 1985) studied at the University of Puerto Rico and earned his Ph.D. at Princeton. He is the author of the short novels Otra vez me alejo (2012) and Caja de fractales (2017). The last one was translated into English as Down with Gargamel! (2020). He is also the author of the bilingual collection of poems, Triste la furia / Sadness, the Fury (2025), of the bilingual artisanal book, Calima (2023), and of the scholarly book, Comienzos para una estética anarquista: Borges con Macedonio (2016; 2020). He is the founding and current head editor  of El Roommate: Colectivo de Lectores and a founding member of The LOUDREADERS Trade School. He is the Associate Director of the Institute for Ethnic Studies at the University of Nebraska. To find more, visit luisothonielrosa.com

Sarah Banderas is Mexican. She holds a Bachelor Degree in Political Science and a Master in Ibero-American Literature. She is currently studying a PhD in Modern Languages and Literatures at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. For the past 15 years she has worked as a scholar, teacher and writer of speeches in her home country. Her research interests are laughter and its stylistic resources in different narrative genres, representations of motherhood in literature and empty spaces. Relatos caseros de una vida ordinaria is her first publication, which won the Seventh International Award of the Mexican publishing house Bitácora de Vuelos.

Iliana Rosabal-Pérez is a poet, essayist, and researcher born in Santiago de Cuba in 1970. She earned a degree in Hispanic Philology from the Universidad de Oriente in 1993, followed by a master’s degree in Cuban and Caribbean Studies in 2004. For twenty-two years, she served as a professor of Art, Literature, Spanish Language, and Tourism Communication at the Universidad de Oriente. Additionally, she has been a jury member for literary and audiovisual contests, an organizer of film and literature events, a publisher, scriptwriter, and host of radio shows. Iliana double majored in Spanish and Digital Film Production, minoring in Communication Studies at Wayne State College. She is a member of the National Collegiate Hispanic Honor Society and has received several mentions and awards in literary competitions, including the Grand Prize for Poetry at the “Palma Real” Contest in Torino, Italy (2001), and the Second Prize of the Jury in the XIV Floral Games in Santiago de Cuba (2009). Her essays and research have been published in various Cuban cultural and academic journals. Iliana has published two poetry collections: Escrituras del límite (Scriptures of the Limit, Santiago de Cuba, 2007) and Lluvia en las dunas (Rain on the Dunes, Houston, TX, 2019), along with the artistic essay “Seven Sculptors of Santiago de Cuba” (Trinidad and Tobago, 2010). She is currently a Spanish Graduate Teaching Assistant at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her academic interests include cultural studies, women’s and gender approaches, film and literature, critical discourse analysis in the media, and Caribbean and Cuban studies.