Cecile Pineda
Encyclopedia
Cecile Pineda was born in September 1932 in the Harlem
, New York city. Her novels have won numerous awards including the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction
and a Gold Medal from the Commonwealth Club of California in 1986 for Face, and a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship. Pineda is a daughter of a Mexican
professor of languages and a French-Swiss artist and teacher. In her autobiographical essay "Deracinated: the writer re-invents her sources" published in Máscaras, she states that her father, along with his father and brothers, fled the Mexican Revolution
leaving his mother and sister behind. In 1961, she moved from New York City to San Francisco, California, where she has spent most of her career as a writer and theater maker. In 1969, Pineda founded The Theater of Man which she directed from 1969 to 1981. Performance pieces were developed in an intense rehearsal process in which actors worked with composers, designers, choreographers, playwrights, and sculptors under her direction. The theater produced thirteen original works, seven of which were based on Pineda's original texts. Productions included her redaction of T. S. Eliot
's Murder in the Cathedral
, Claude van Itallie's The Serpent, After Eurydice, Stoneground, based on Mujica-Lainz’ Bomarzo, The Trial
, after Franz Kafka, and Threesomes.
She completed her theater studies in 1970, taking an advanced M.A. degree in theater from San Francisco State University
. The Cecile Pineda Papers, 1959–to the present, include a collection of the author's original correspondence, manuscripts, journals, reviews, videos, drafts, rehearsal logs, and posters documenting her career in both literature and theater. The collection is housed at Stanford University
, occupying more than 29 feet (8.8 m). Her academic appointments include positions as writer in residence at San Diego State University
and Mills College
in Oakland, California, and a Distinguished Regents’ Lectureship at the University of California, Berkeley.
An avid reader from childhood, Pineda cites Samuel Beckett
, Kōbō Abe
, J.M. Coetzee, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
, and Franz Kafka
as writers whose work has most influenced her.
Summaries
Face
Cecile Pineda’s debut novel, Face, which won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction
awarded by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, proposes a protagonist who suffers a catastrophic facial accident. It addresses issues having to do with identity. “When I read Face in 1985, it struck me as an extraordinary achievement, all the more extraordinary for being a first novel. Rereading it has not changed my estimate....Face continues to haunt me.” —J.M. Coetzee, Nobel Prize, 2003.
Frieze
Frieze was published soon after in 1987. Set in 9th Century India and Java, it questions the role of the individual artist in a society, which is at once exploitative and oppressive.
The Love Queen of the Amazon
Published in 1992, with the assistance of a National Endowment of the Arts Writing Fellowship, Pineda’s comic novel, The Love Queen of the Amazon, was named Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times. Its protagonist, Ana Magdelena Figeruoa is awarded in a brokered marriage to a celebrated Latin American man of letters who charges her with providing him with three meals a day and a clean change of underwear while he repairs to his aerie to compose the Great Latin American novel of the Boom Years. The novel is a send-up of hemispheric politics and magic realism. “Ana Magdalena Figueroa is one of the few great Latin heroines not created by the male imagination. Cecile Pineda has enhanced the roster of modern literature's most remarkable female characters with her brilliantly drawn portrait.” —Richard Martins, The Chicago Tribune, March 8, 1992.
Fishlight: A Dream of Childhood
Fishlight: A Dream of Childhood is Pineda’s fictional memoir told in the voice of a five-year-old. Published by Wings Press in 2001, it explores the imaginative formation of the future writer.
Bardo99
In 2002, Pineda published the first of her mononovels. Cast as the protagonist’s dying hallucination, Bardo 99 is the author’s encounter with the some of the waning century’s most apocalyptic events.
Redoubt
Pineda followed the publication of Bardo 99 with a second mononovel in 2004. Redoubt follows the stream of consciousness of a sentry standing guard in a desert outpost located somewhere close to or distant from an unnamed capital. It is Pineda’s meditation on the state of being born female. “Redoubt is as close as I've ever come to "being one" with a woman, through the pages of a book.” —Rudy Ch. Garcia writing in La Bloga, December, 2005.
Like Snow Melting in Water is based on a true story. Set in the contemporary rice-growing village of Ogama on the Sea of Japan, it chronicles the collapse of an agrarian culture and sale of the village to The Tashima Company, a toxic waste disposal company. Performance rights are represented by the Robert A. Freedman Dramatic Agency
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
, New York city. Her novels have won numerous awards including the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction
Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction
The Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction is awarded by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The $5,000 prize is given for the best published first novel or collection of short stories in the preceding year...
and a Gold Medal from the Commonwealth Club of California in 1986 for Face, and a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship. Pineda is a daughter of a Mexican
Mexican people
Mexican people refers to all persons from Mexico, a multiethnic country in North America, and/or who identify with the Mexican cultural and/or national identity....
professor of languages and a French-Swiss artist and teacher. In her autobiographical essay "Deracinated: the writer re-invents her sources" published in Máscaras, she states that her father, along with his father and brothers, fled the Mexican Revolution
Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution was a major armed struggle that started in 1910, with an uprising led by Francisco I. Madero against longtime autocrat Porfirio Díaz. The Revolution was characterized by several socialist, liberal, anarchist, populist, and agrarianist movements. Over time the Revolution...
leaving his mother and sister behind. In 1961, she moved from New York City to San Francisco, California, where she has spent most of her career as a writer and theater maker. In 1969, Pineda founded The Theater of Man which she directed from 1969 to 1981. Performance pieces were developed in an intense rehearsal process in which actors worked with composers, designers, choreographers, playwrights, and sculptors under her direction. The theater produced thirteen original works, seven of which were based on Pineda's original texts. Productions included her redaction of T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
's Murder in the Cathedral
Murder in the Cathedral
Murder in the Cathedral is a verse drama by T. S. Eliot that portrays the assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170, first performed in 1935...
, Claude van Itallie's The Serpent, After Eurydice, Stoneground, based on Mujica-Lainz’ Bomarzo, The Trial
The Trial
The Trial is a novel by Franz Kafka, first published in 1925. One of Kafka's best-known works, it tells the story of a man arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, with the nature of his crime revealed neither to him nor the reader.Like Kafka's other novels, The Trial was never...
, after Franz Kafka, and Threesomes.
She completed her theater studies in 1970, taking an advanced M.A. degree in theater from San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University is a public university located in San Francisco, California. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers over 100 areas of study from nine academic colleges...
. The Cecile Pineda Papers, 1959–to the present, include a collection of the author's original correspondence, manuscripts, journals, reviews, videos, drafts, rehearsal logs, and posters documenting her career in both literature and theater. The collection is housed at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
, occupying more than 29 feet (8.8 m). Her academic appointments include positions as writer in residence at San Diego State University
San Diego State University
San Diego State University , founded in 1897 as San Diego Normal School, is the largest and oldest higher education facility in the greater San Diego area , and is part of the California State University system...
and Mills College
Mills College
Mills College is an independent liberal arts women's college founded in 1852 that offers bachelor's degrees to women and graduate degrees and certificates to women and men. Located in Oakland, California, Mills was the first women's college west of the Rockies. The institution was initially founded...
in Oakland, California, and a Distinguished Regents’ Lectureship at the University of California, Berkeley.
An avid reader from childhood, Pineda cites Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
, Kōbō Abe
Kobo Abe
, pseudonym of was a Japanese writer, playwright, photographer and inventor. Abe has been often compared to Franz Kafka and Alberto Moravia for his surreal, often nightmarish explorations of individuals in contemporary society and his modernist sensibilities....
, J.M. Coetzee, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. He is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in...
, and Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
as writers whose work has most influenced her.
Written Novels
Face
Cecile Pineda’s debut novel, Face, which won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction
Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction
The Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction is awarded by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The $5,000 prize is given for the best published first novel or collection of short stories in the preceding year...
awarded by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, proposes a protagonist who suffers a catastrophic facial accident. It addresses issues having to do with identity. “When I read Face in 1985, it struck me as an extraordinary achievement, all the more extraordinary for being a first novel. Rereading it has not changed my estimate....Face continues to haunt me.” —J.M. Coetzee, Nobel Prize, 2003.
Frieze
Frieze was published soon after in 1987. Set in 9th Century India and Java, it questions the role of the individual artist in a society, which is at once exploitative and oppressive.
The Love Queen of the Amazon
Published in 1992, with the assistance of a National Endowment of the Arts Writing Fellowship, Pineda’s comic novel, The Love Queen of the Amazon, was named Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times. Its protagonist, Ana Magdelena Figeruoa is awarded in a brokered marriage to a celebrated Latin American man of letters who charges her with providing him with three meals a day and a clean change of underwear while he repairs to his aerie to compose the Great Latin American novel of the Boom Years. The novel is a send-up of hemispheric politics and magic realism. “Ana Magdalena Figueroa is one of the few great Latin heroines not created by the male imagination. Cecile Pineda has enhanced the roster of modern literature's most remarkable female characters with her brilliantly drawn portrait.” —Richard Martins, The Chicago Tribune, March 8, 1992.
Fishlight: A Dream of Childhood
Fishlight: A Dream of Childhood is Pineda’s fictional memoir told in the voice of a five-year-old. Published by Wings Press in 2001, it explores the imaginative formation of the future writer.
Bardo99
In 2002, Pineda published the first of her mononovels. Cast as the protagonist’s dying hallucination, Bardo 99 is the author’s encounter with the some of the waning century’s most apocalyptic events.
Redoubt
Pineda followed the publication of Bardo 99 with a second mononovel in 2004. Redoubt follows the stream of consciousness of a sentry standing guard in a desert outpost located somewhere close to or distant from an unnamed capital. It is Pineda’s meditation on the state of being born female. “Redoubt is as close as I've ever come to "being one" with a woman, through the pages of a book.” —Rudy Ch. Garcia writing in La Bloga, December, 2005.
Plays
Like Snow Melting in Water (2008)Like Snow Melting in Water is based on a true story. Set in the contemporary rice-growing village of Ogama on the Sea of Japan, it chronicles the collapse of an agrarian culture and sale of the village to The Tashima Company, a toxic waste disposal company. Performance rights are represented by the Robert A. Freedman Dramatic Agency
External links
- cecilepineda.com
- http://cecilepineda.com/index.htm
- http://www.wingspress.com/author.cfm/33/Cecile-Pineda/
- http://www.jrank.org/cultures/pages/4314/Cecile-Pineda.html
- http://www.ccc.commnet.edu/latinoguide/secondary/CPineda.htm