Bio

Maya Feile Tomes is a lecturer and researcher in the field of early modern (C16th–18th) Ibero-American literary culture, focusing on the conceptual emergence of the Atlantic world. She is currently Teaching Associate in Colonial Latin American Literary and Cultural Studies in the Spanish & Portuguese Department at the University of Cambridge, where she also studied and received her PhD (2017). Born in London, she has lived in places from Argentina to Belgium and beyond. The Coronavirus 2020-21 lockdown is the first time she has ever spent a full year of her life continuously in the UK! This only makes her all the more grateful to have this opportunity to travel to Olot for her writers’ residency at Faber in September.

Project

My project is an edition of a work by C18th Catalan writer, Josep Manuel Peramàs (José Manuel Peramás). Peramàs was born in Mataró in 1732 and subsequently spent twelve years in the Province of Paraguay. Upon his return to Europe, he composed an epic poem – in Latin – entitled ‘On the Discovery of the New World’ (1777), which fell into neglect after his death in 1793. I have recently drafted the first-ever translation of it – into English – together with my colleague Dr Bram van der Velden. At Faber, I will be revising the text of this translation and preparing the introduction.