González Echevarría, Roberto

Roberto González Echevarría was born on November 28, 1943 in Sagua La Grande, Cuba. He is the Sterling Professor of Hispanic and Comparative Literature at Yale University.

His family emigrated to the United States in 1959 at the advent of the Cuban Revolution. He received his bachelor's from the University of South Florida in 1964, a masters from Indiana University in 1966, and a doctorate from Yale in 1970. He also holds honorary doctorates from Colgate University (1987), the University of South Florida (2000), and Columbia University (2002). In 1999 he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

After receiving his doctorate, González Echevarría taught at Yale and then at Cornell (1971-1977), where he was one of the first editors of the journal Diacritics. Since 1977 he has taught at Yale University, where he was awarded the first endowed chair in Spanish (R. Selden Rose). In 1991, he was named Bass Professor of Hispanic and Comparative Literature, and in 1995, Sterling Professor, the highest-ranking university chair at Yale.

His works include Alejo Carpentier: The Pilgrim at Home (1977, 1990); The Voice of the Masters: Writing and Authority in Modern Latin American Literature (1985); his Cátedra editions of Carpentier's Los pasos perdidos (1985)and Sarduy's De donde son los cantantes (1993); La ruta de Severo Sarduy (1987); Myth and Archive: A Theory of Latin American Narrative (1990, 1998); Celestina's Brood: Continuities of the Baroque in Spanish and Latin American Literatures (1993); The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball (1999); Crítica práctica, práctica crítica (2002); Love and the Law in Cervantes (2005); and Cuban Fiestas (2010).

He was awarded the National Humanities Medal of 2010 by President Barack Obama. He has also received a Guggenheim Fellowship and, among others, grants from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Social Science Research Council.