About

Mauricio Montiel Figueiras (Guadalajara, Mexico, 1968) is a writer of prose fiction and essays, as well as a poet, translator, editor and film and literary critic. His work has been published in magazines and newspapers in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Italy, Peru, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Among the American journals that have published his fiction work are Catamaran Literary Reader, Chicago Quarterly Review, Fiction, Mexico City Lit, and The Portable Museum. Since 1995 he lives and works in Mexico City.

Summary of work

The most recent books by Mauricio Montiel Figueiras are Paseos sin rumbo. Diálogos entre cine y literatura (Aimless Roamings: Dialogues Between Film and Literature, essays, 2010), Señor Fritos (Mister Fritos, children’s book, 2011), La mujer de M. (The Woman of M., novella, 2012), Ciudad tomada (City Taken Over, short stories, 2013), and Los que hablan. Fotorrelatos (The Ones Who Speak: Photostories, short stories and photographs, 2016). Since 2011 he has been working on a Twitter novel, The Man in Tweed, in two accounts: @Elhombredetweed and @LamujerdeM.

He has been Resident Writer for the Cheltenham Festival of Literature in England (2003) and The Bellagio Study and Conference Center in Italy (2008). In 2012 he was appointed Resident Writer for the prestigious Hawthornden Retreat for Writers in Scotland. In 2015 he was appointed National Coordinator of Literature for the National Institute of Fine Arts.

Summary of work to develop

Since 2003, when I was appointed Resident Writer for the Cheltenham Festival of Literature, I have been in permanent contact with the literary world of the United Kingdom. In 2015, when I was appointed National Coordinator of Literature in Mexico, I started to strengthen the collaborative ties between our two countries by programming and participating in different literary activities both in Mexico and the UK. With the aid of ILS I would like to create more connections that could be helpful not only for Mexican literature but also for my own work as a writer, and to expand the knowledge of UK literature in my country.