Manuel Vilas at Iowa City Book Festival

North America’s only UNESCO City of Literature hosts the Iowa City Book Festival, featuring a presentation by Spanish author Manuel Vilas.

North America’s only UNESCO City of Literature hosts every year the Iowa City Book Festival featuring more more than 100 national and international authors over four days of events. This year, the festival hosts a presentation by Spanish author Manuel Vilas.

Manuel Vilas (Spain 1962), writes novels, short stories, poetry and non-fiction, and has won several prizes such as the 2015 Letters of Aragon Award and X Llanes of Travelers Award.

Recent books include the non-fiction books América (2017) and Arde el sol sin tiempo (2014); the novels Lou Reed era español (2016), El luminoso regalo (2013), Los inmortales (2012); and the short stories Setecientos millones de rinocerontes (2015).

Vilas has published 13 books of poetry to date, including much acclaimed Resurrección (XV Jaime Gil de Biedma Award, 2005), Calor (VI Fray Luis of León Award, 2008), Amor. poesía reunida, 1988-2010 (2010), Gran Vilas (XXXIII City of Melilla Award, 2012), and El hundimiento (Generación of 27 Award, 2015).

During Spring 2017, he was an Obermann Fellow Writer in Residence at the University of Iowa, where he worked on a new non-fiction book titled Crónicas americanas (American chronicles).