David Unger is writer and translator, he received Guatemala’s 2014 Miguel Angel Asturias National Literature Prize for lifetime achievement though he writes exclusively in English. His latest novel, The Mastermind, is appearing in seven languages including Spanish, Arabic, Turkish and Italian. Other published novels include The Price of Escape; Para Mi, Eres Divina; Ni chicha, ni limonada; and Life in the Damn Tropics. His short stories and essays have appeared in Guernica Magazine, Review and Playboy Mexico. As translator, he has published 14 titles including The Popol Vuh, Guatemala’s pre-Columbian creation myth and the work of Rigoberta Menchú (Guatemala), Silvia Molina (Mexico), Nicanor Parra (Chile), Teresa Cárdenas (Cuba), Mario Benedetti (Uruguay), among others. He just received a NYSCA grant to retranslate Nobelist Miguel Angel Asturias’s first novel El Señor Presidente and teaches Translation in the MFA Program.
Unger has been a featured writer in book festivals in San Juan, Miami, Los Angeles, Guatemala, Sharjah, Managua, Bogotá, Lima, La Paz, Oaxaca, and Guadalajara.