Josefina Niggli

Mexican-born Josefina Niggli (1910-1983) was a playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and short story writer. For many years she worked in Hollywood in the stable of writers at Twentieth Century Fox and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. She then moved to North Carolina and taught first at the University of North Carolina and then became the director of drama and a journalism instructor at Western Carolina University, where she stayed until she retired. She received many honors including two Rockefeller Fellowships in Playwriting, a National Theatre Counsel Fellowship, and the Mayflower Association of North Carolina Award for Mexican Village. Ilan Stavans is Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture and Five-College 40th Anniversary Professor at Amherst College. His recent books include Dictionary Days: A Defining Passion (Graywolf, 2005), and On Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language (Penguin, 2002). He is also the author of Bandido: The Death and Resurrection of Oscar "Zeta" Acosta (2003) and The Disappearance: A Novella and Stories (2006), both published by Northwestern University Press. Stavans has been the recipient of numerous awards, among them a Guggenheim Fellowship, Chile's Presidential Medal, The Rubén Darío Medal, and the National Jewish Book Award. He is the host of the syndicated PBS show Conversations with Ilan Stavans.