Jorge Volpi

Jorge Volpi (full name Jorge Volpi Escalante, born July 10, 1968) is a Mexican novelist and essayist, best known for his novels such as In Search of Klingsor (En busca de Klingsor).

Trained as a lawyer, he gained notice in the 1990s with his first publications and participation in the pronouncement of the "Crack Manifesto" with several other young writers to protest the state of Mexican literature and promote their own work.

Volpi's novels are distinct from magical realism and other trends of Latin American literature as they focus on the actions of characters and research into academic topics, especially history and science, and do not always focus on Latin American characters and settings.

His work has been translated into twenty five languages and recognized with awards such as Biblioteca Breva Award and the Planta-Casa de América as well as a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation.

In addition to his writing he has worked as a cultural attaché, the director of Canal 22 in the State of Mexico and is currently the director of the Festival Internacional Cervantino.

Jorge Volpi was born in Mexico City.

Since childhood, he has been interested in history and science.

At age thirteen, he wanted to be a historian, specializing in the Middle Ages, attempting to write a book on the entire topic.

He stated much of his interest in science was sparked by watching Carl Sagan's Cosmos on television.

He decided later in life to abandon these for literature, but these interests remain and appear in his writing.

Volpi attended high school at the Centro Universitario México in Mexico City, later doing his undergraduate work in law at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and receiving his masters from the same institution in Mexican literature.

He also worked on writing at the Centro de Escritores Mexicanos, with Carlos Montemayor and Ali Chumacero.

For almost three years in the early 1990s, Volpi worked as a secretary to Diego Valades, the first attorney general for the Federal District of Mexico City and later the attorney general for Mexico.

He was working with politicians, police and judiciary at a turbulent time, with among other things, the Chiapas uprising.

Volpi's first two published works are a series of short stories called Pieza de forma de sonata (1991) at age 23 and novel A pesar del oscuro silencio (1992).

During this time, in 1994, he was in Oaxaca, when a state government official there was assassinated, giving him the idea for a later novel called La paz de los sepulcros.

Although published ten years later, one month before the Luis Donaldo Colosio assassination, he wrote a part of the book where a political assassination occurs much the way Colosio's did, one month before it happened.

The book also discussed the fall of the Institutional Revolutionary Party.

In 1996, Volpi moved to Spain to do his doctorate at the University of Salamanca.

He spent three years there, earning his degree in Hispanic philology with his thesis about poet Jorge Cuesta.

During his time in Spain, he also began work on the novel En busca de Klingsor.

He met with and shared experiences there with fellow writer Ignacio Padilla, crediting him as an indirect influence on the work.

He also learned German as part of research into the book at this time.

On August 7, 1996, Volpi, along with Eloy Urroz, Ignacio Padilla, Ricardo Chávez Castaneda and Pedro Angel Palau, all Mexican authors under the age of thirty, met at the Centro Cultural San Angel to read their "Crack Manifesto", which expressed frustration with the socio-political system with apocalyptic themes associated with the end of the millennium.

This is what the word "crack" refers to.

This followed the planning of near-simultaneous publication of five works by the group, mostly as a protest against the then dominant "literature light" novels as well as current events, with the books carrying the label of "crack novels."

In 2001, he was named director of the Mexican Cultural Center in Paris, living in Paris for three years.

He was also offered the opportunity to be a cultural attaché for the Mexican embassy in Italy, but rejected the offer.

He served as a jury member for the Guadalajara International Book Fair, which awarded this institution's prize to Bryce Enchenique, later accused of plagiarism.

In 2007, he became the director of Canal (Channel) 22, the government cultural television station of the State of Mexico.

He reformed the station and how it is perceived by the public.

Since 2007, he has taught Mexican literature and other topics at universities on three continents, at institutions such as the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Emory, Cornell, Universidad de las Américas Puebla, University of Pau and Pays de l'Adour, the Catholic University of Chile and the Universidad Marista in Guadalajara.

Since 2012, he has been a visiting professor at Princeton, where he currently lives.

He has stated that he does not want fame, that it is better suited for singers, actors and television personalities.

Writers need to be on the margin.

Volpi is best known for his novels and essays, with nine novels published.

He decided to become a writer after reading Carlos Fuentes' Terra Nostra because it convinced him that writing can recreate history.

Later, Volpi became friends with Fuentes after the older writer praised En busca de Klingsor.

Volpi's works have been translated into twenty five languages, with his work influential in both Spanish and English as his style has differed from what has been produced in either of these languages.

In 2013, he was named the director of the Festival Internacional Cervantino in Guanajuato, the most important cultural festival in Latin America.