Martín Espada Receives Inaugural Letras Boricuas Fellowship

Martín Espada, professor of English, is one of 20 Puerto Rican writers to receive an inaugural Letras Boricuas Fellowship. The award, announced earlier this week, was created by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Flamboyan Foundation’s Arts Fund. It aims to enrich and sustain literary tradition in Puerto Rico and across the U.S. diaspora.

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Espada and the other writers selected span genres including fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction and children’s literature. A first-of-its-kind fellowship, the Letras Boricuas was created to identify, elevate and amplify the voices of emerging and established Puerto Rican writers on the island and across the United States.

Espada has published more than 20 books as a poet, essayist, editor and translator. His latest book of poems, “Floaters,” is a finalist for the National Book Award. Other collections of his poems include “Vivas to Those Who Have Failed,” “The Trouble Ball” and “Alabanza.” His honors include the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award, an Academy of American Poets Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. A former tenant lawyer for the greater Boston Latino community, Espada was born in Brooklyn, N.Y.

The fellowship provides critical support to writers who have endured and continue their practice through repeated natural disasters and ongoing political turmoil, despite historically limited opportunities to share their work with a broader audience. Through the unrestricted funds, the fellowship will support Puerto Rico’s celebrated literary lineage, a discipline traditionally underfunded and under-resourced in both Puerto Rico and the U.S. and illustrate the diversity of these writers’ experiences.

The 2021 Letras Boricuas fellows were selected by a committee of acclaimed Puerto Rican writers based on the archipelago and in the U.S., including Mayra Santos Febres, Eduardo Lalo, Félix Joaquín Rivera, Carina del Valle Schorske, Willie Perdomo and Aracelis Girmay.

The Letras Boricuas Fellowship furthers The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s commitment to sustaining and enriching Puerto Rico’s vibrant cultural, knowledge and memory ecosystems and the individuals working within them. Since 2018, the foundation has committed more than $13 million, with an additional $10 million being committed by the end of 2021, to a multi-year initiative to sustain and enrich Puerto Rico’s culture and humanities ecosystems.

For the past two years, the Flamboyan Foundation has worked through its Arts Fund initiative to preserve, amplify and strengthen the arts in Puerto Rico. In response to the devastating effects of hurricanes Maria and Irma, the Fund has committed more than $10 million and has provided critical support to more than 600 artists and 100 arts organizations.

Applications for the next round of Letras Boricuas Fellows for 2022 will be available in the spring of 2022. Participating fellows will be hosted at a gathering in San Juan, Puerto Rico tentatively scheduled for April 2023. Writers interested in applying can visit www.letrasboricuas.org for more information and to submit applications in either Spanish or English.