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Creator
Boullosa, Carmen
Call number
MssCol 23211
Physical description
43.9 linear feet (91 boxes); 39.63 gigabytes (18,456 computer files)
Language
Multiple languages; The majority of collection materials are in Spanish, though many are in English, including academic and professional files, correspondence, and publicity materials.
Preferred Citation
Carmen Boullosa papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library
Repository
Manuscripts and Archives Division
Access to materials
Request an in-person research appointment.Restrictions apply

Carmen Boullosa (1954-) is one of Mexico's leading novelists, poets and playwrights. Boullosa also writes and prints art books, mixing image and text. She is a professor, the co-founder of Cafe Nueva York, and the host of the CUNY-TV program, Nueva York. The Carmen Boullosa papers (1970-2016) contain the following groups: Correspondence, Writings, Artist Books and Artwork, Publicity Materials, Academic and Professional files, and Personal files.

Biographical/historical information

Carmen Boullosa (born in Mexico City in 1954) is one of Mexico's leading novelists, poets and playwrights. Some of her seventeen novels deal with historical themes such as the world of Moctezuma, the early Colonial period in Mexico City, the life of pirates in the 17th Century Caribbean, and the era of Cervantes. Her novels have been translated into Italian, Dutch, German, French, Portuguese, Chinese, and Russian.

Boullosa also writes and prints art books, mixing image and text, which have been exhibited at the Museo de Arte Moderno de la Ciudad de México, and the Sala Pablo Ruiz Picasso del Museo de Arte Moderno de Madrid. Her poems have also appeared in the art books of leading painters such as Juan Soriano, Magali Lara, Othón Tellez, and Philip Hughes, whose book with Boullosa, Jump of the Manta Ray, was a 2003 British Book Design Award finalist.

With Salman Rushdie, Boullosa co-founded the Mexico City House for Persecuted Writers at Mexico City, and together with Rushdie and City University of New York (CUNY) Distinguished Professor of History Mike Wallace, she has been exploring the possibility of a similar operation being established on Governor's Island, New York.

Boullosa has held visiting teaching appointments at San Diego State, Georgetown, La Sorbonne (Alfonso Reyes Chair), New York University (Andrés Bello Chair), Columbia University, and was a Distinguished Lecturer at City College, CUNY. She has also lectured at Brown, Princeton, Irvine, UCLA, and institutions in England (Trinity College at Oxford), Germany, Austria, France, Spain, Argentina, Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia, and elsewhere.

Since 2005, she has co-hosted the Emmy Award winning CUNY-TV program, Nueva York, in which she interviews major Spanish-speaking writers, artists and intellectuals. In 2007 she co-founded Café Nueva York, a group of writers who work in Spanish and live in New York, dedicated to reclaiming the forgotten legacy of their forebears who also wrote in Spanish and lived in New York. She was a consultant to Nueva York, a major exhibition to be mounted by the New York Historical Society, on the 400-year history of New York's relations with the Spanish-speaking world.

Boullosa has two children with her first husband, Alejandro Aura. Since 2005, she has been married to American author and historian Mike Wallace.

Scope and arrangement

The Carmen Boullosa papers contain the following groups: Writings, Visual Works, Correspondence, Publicity Materials, Academic and Professional files, and Personal files.

Writings, which date from 1969 to 2014, include files on Boullosa's major novels and novellas, as well as her poetry, plays, essays, and articles. Materials include annotated drafts, notebooks, loose excerpts, galleys, drawings, images, artwork, scrapbooks, background research materials, reviews, and a small amount of related publicity materials. Novels represented include Mejor Desaparece (1987), Antes (1989), Son Vacas, Somos Puercos (1991; They're Cows, We're Pigs), El Médico de los Piratas: Bucaneros y Filibusteros en el Caribe (1991), Isabel (1991; novella; published in Prosa Rota), Llanto: Novellas Imposibles (1992), Cielos de la Tierra (1997), La Milagrosa (1993; The Miracle Worker), Duerme (1994), Treinta Años (1999; Leaving Tabasco), De un Salto Descabalga la Reina (2002), La Otra Mano de Lepanto (2005), La Novela Perfecta (2006), Las Paredes Hablan (2010), El Velazquez de Paris (2007), La Virgin y el Violin (2008), El Complot de los Románticos (2009), Texas: the Great Theft (2013), and A Narco History: How the United States and Mexico Jointly Created the "Mexican Drug War" (2016, collaboration with Mike Wallace).

Visual works include visual poems, artist books, and drawings and paintings by Boullosa and other artists, sometimes in collaboration with Boullosa. Other artists whose work is included here are Magali Lara and Juan Soriano.

Correspondence, dating from the late 1970s to 2013, consists mostly of incoming letters, but also contains outgoing emails and letters. Boullosa's correspondence, largely with other writers, artists, and academics, deals with subjects such as literature, Boullosa's work, her personal relationships, Mexican politics, and academic lectures and workshops. Boullosa's most frequent correspondents are Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño; Boullosa's husband, American writer Mike Wallace; American writer Paul Berman; Argentine author, journalist, literary critic, and translator Vlady Kociancich; German literary agent Dr. Ray-Güde Mertin; and publisher Michi. Other correspondents include Salman Rushdie; Michel Houllebecq; Cormac McCarthy; Philip K. Dick; American journalist Bill Buford; artist, illustrator, and translator Philip Hughes; Colombian poet, novelist and essayist Alvaro Mutis; Chilean writer, film director, political activist, and journalist Luis Sepúlveda; Mexican writer and diplomat Jorge Valdés Diaz-Vélez; Venezuelan poet Yolanda Pantin; and Mexican writer and music critic Juan Vicente Melo. Correspondence can also be found elsewhere throughout the collection, interfiled with files on associated writings, academic engagements, and professional organizations.

Publicity materials, arranged chronologically, consist mainly of collected clippings and scrapbooks. These materials document Boullosa's professional activities, personal life, performances, lectures, and appearances; as well as her published written works. They include articles, magazines, clippings, posters, flyers, interviews, essays on Boullosa's works, and occasionally correspondence pertaining to press coverage.

Academic and professional files document Boullosa's teaching career at institutions where Boullosa had long-term engagements, such as San Diego State University, Georgetown University, New York University, Columbia University, and City University of New York; as well as other institutions at which she lectured. Teaching files include notes, notebooks, syllabi, course schedules, and background materials. Files on professional organizations and associations with which Boullosa has been involved, particularly Café Nueva York. Some essays and articles, written by Boullosa and others, are also included here. Electronic academic and professional files contain publicity materials such as short biographies, interviews, and resumes.

Personal files contain documents pertaining to her home, friends, wedding to Mike Wallace, and her children. These files mainly consist of over 7,000 photographs, held in the electronic records, but also include slides, notes, and some correspondence. The photographs and videos included in this collection document Boullosa's family; her childhood and youth in Mexico; her work in the Theatre in Mexico; her first husband, Alejandro Aura; her children, Juan Aura and Maria Aura; her daughter's career as an actress; her second husband, Mike Wallace and their wedding and life together in Brooklyn in the 2000s; vacations; and social gathering and events pertaining to her involvement in communities of Latin American and international writers living and working in New York.

The Carmen Boullosa papers are arranged in six series:

Administrative information

Source of acquisition

Purchased by the New York Public Library in 2015.

Processing information

Processed by Diana Bertolini, 2017.

Using the collection

Location

Manuscripts and Archives Division
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, New York, NY 10018-2788
Brooke Russell Astor Reading Room, Third Floor, Room 328

Access restrictions

All Mike Wallace emails and files are closed until 2040; all post-2005 emails are closed until 2025. Audio and visual materials are currently unavailable pending digitization.