Biography of Moscona's Judeo-Spanish author published
Reyes Martínez Torrijos
La Jornada Newspaper, Thursday, July 3, 2025, p. 4
The book Tela de sevoya is a very particular biography of Judeo-Spanish for which Myriam Moscona, its author, feels a double passion because it is her family heritage and because she is a writer and the language is an enigma and a love that is sometimes reciprocated
.
The writer and poet told La Jornada that the text, republished by the Tusquets label and presented today at the Rosario Castellanos Bookstore, refers to something that is more than the language of my childhood, it is the childhood of my language
, where she explores the mysterious way in which the separation in time and distance of so many generations survived.
Moscona (CDMX, 1955) thus developed what was his first search and landing of the language also called Ladino, which is familiar to him because it is based on Spanish and is the language that his grandmothers spoke after their arrival in Mexico as migrants in the post-war years.
He emphasized that storytelling from a creative perspective was a very interesting gateway at an age when writers don't usually experiment as much. Something that characterizes my writing is the change of voices. Literary criticism prioritizes a writer having a recognizable voice from the start. I leave that privilege to my colleagues; I get bored of always being the same
.
In this narrative, Moscona drew on the poem, from which he then passed the informative note that details the transfer of Judeo-Spanish and the theatrical dialogues, until arriving at interviews that clarified certain contradictions as well, of this small town, a great hell in which we, the small communities, the minorities, are often submerged
.
He recalled that after World War II, his parents had a baby born along the way. A few years later, they brought his parents: two grandmothers and a grandfather, who was the first to leave. At his age, they no longer switched to contemporary Spanish; they were natural Bulgarian speakers
.
The poet recounted: her grandparents spoke the Ladino language they had inherited for many generations from this community that was expelled at the end of the 15th century from the Iberian Peninsula and that became a language of exile, without a homeland and without an academy
.
Ladino became a unifying element through the distant diaspora in countries in North Africa and the Slavic region, as well as Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, and other Mediterranean countries, each with distinct languages.
“In Judeo-Spanish,” the journalist continued, “with its diminutives, the expressions that any reader of Cervantes and Don Quixote still recognizes, we can distinguish the use of several words that have been lost or transformed over time.”
Moscona, the daughter of Sephardic Jews born in Bulgaria who emigrated to Mexico in 1951, did not communicate in Judeo-Spanish during her childhood because Spanish has a very large mouth and eats up the smaller tongue
.
She recalled thinking of it as the way her grandparents spoke. I sometimes see them in photographs, and they were old, but it turns out I'm older now, for example, than my paternal grandmother. Times have changed, not only for languages, but for us
.
Regarding her first narrative work, whose first edition was in 2012, the narrator said that it immediately had a good star because it received the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize , to my absolute surprise, it caught me totally off guard
.
She is very pleased with the current publication; in a few days, she will even travel to France, motivated by the French version of Tela de Sevoya , which was completed by a talented translator who successfully faced the challenge of the multitude of Judeo-Spanish fragments. It has also been translated into Italian and English, and there are editions in Spain and Argentina, as well as other editions in our country.
“Languages remember what people's memories forget. And that stays with them. The biography of a language tells you a lot, like the different layers of an archaeological object you rescue, and the deeper it is, the more information it has about the past. In Tela de sevoya, all these layers exist, just as they exist in an onion,” the narrator said.
The title refers to a saying from Sephardic culture, in which there is a very lively communication through these phrases: “ El meoyo del ombre es tela de sevoya ”, where the meoyo means intelligence and essence and Moscona translated it as human fragility is brittle like onion cloth
.
Although her language is Spanish and she was born outside the time of Ladino
, the narrator said that juventud in that language is mensevez
and together with forms like nadien
, ande juites
, they are still
used in rural areas of Mexico, not because those speakers have anything to do with Judeo-Spanish, but because it is a Spanish that remained frozen there in which the first Iberian settlers brought to this continent
.
For Moscona, Tela de sevoya “ is a border between the current language and that of the 15th century, between life and death, wakefulness and sleep, the different genres and geographies, especially those of Mexico, Bulgaria, Turkey and Spain.”
The title will be presented today at 7 p.m. at the Rosario Castellanos bookstore (Tamaulipas 202, Hipódromo de la Condesa neighborhood, Mexico City) .
They promote water conservation through art
Reyes Martínez Torrijos
La Jornada Newspaper, Thursday, July 3, 2025, p. 4
The Murals for Water program, which aims to raise awareness about the need for water conservation through art, was launched on Tuesday. The call for proposals for the National Water Commission (Conagua) initiative will be announced in two weeks. It involves the creation of 50 community murals by local artists in the states of Puebla and Tlaxcala.
The investment will be 3 million pesos, to which Comex will add 1 million pesos in supplies to complete the paintings. Workshops and other activities will also be organized to connect children with the overall goal.
Murals for Water is one of the actions of the National Agreement for the Human Right to Water and Sustainability, signed last year by the Presidency of the Republic, governors, business leaders, educational institutions, and representatives of indigenous communities.
Paola Félix Díaz, coordinator of the National Agreement and International Affairs, explained that the 50 community murals will be painted in public spaces in municipalities along the Atoyac River basin with the goal of raising awareness, generating identity, and mobilizing communities around sanitation and river care. One of the goals is to create a corridor that is also a tourist and cultural area.
Community work
The development of each project will be accompanied by awareness-raising workshops for children, youth, and families, in addition to the participation of local artists. Comex's investment this year could be replicated in more states in 2026.
Mai Hernández, Director of Public Affairs and Social Impact at Comex, noted that the call for proposals will be issued in two weeks and is intended for local creators to work "with us, to take these workshops to raise awareness and promote water conservation, and so that, together with the communities, we can propose collective solutions."
The idea is to put the community at the center and then have this social work with the people remain as guardians of these murals.
The call is open to established, emerging, and amateur local artists; there will also be spaces designed for children to participate.
Meanwhile, Javier Sosa, president of PPG Comex, said that the resources allocated to this program will be supplemented with nearly 30 million pesos for awareness-raising throughout the six-year term, with the goal of communicating to communities that this care is a collaborative effort.
The municipal president of Huejotzingo, Roberto Solís, highlighted the importance of being taken into account because apart from the civilization and culture of water, this goes further because it involves art, culture and the society that makes it its own, you just have to know how to communicate it correctly
.
Also present at the project presentation were Javier Buenrostro, Coordinator of Communication and Water Culture, and Alejandro Isauro Martínez, Commissioner for Sanitation and Restoration of the Atoyac Basin.
Serafín Aponte celebrates 25 years since the creation of his company
The group stands out for bringing contemporary dance about Afro-descendants
to the stage
▲ Yanga… Black Resistance in Mexico , by choreographer Serafín Aponte, who is currently presenting Cositas y Loas at the Teatro Varsovia. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Fabiola Palapa Quijas
La Jornada Newspaper, Thursday, July 3, 2025, p. 5
Serafín Aponte, choreographer, dancer, and contemporary dance teacher, stands out in the Mexican dance scene for his focus on social issues and for bringing the theme of Afro-Mexican heritage to the stage.
My history in dance has not been linear. I have evolved chameleon-like, changing and transmuting in search of new identities to continue my journey
, shares the creator, who today celebrates his company's 25th anniversary with the show " Cositas y Loas " at the Warsaw Theater.
The Serafín Aponte Danza Company emerged in 2000 with the premiere of a multimedia performance piece entitled Lia, which was presented at the Experimental Forum of the National Center for the Arts.
The maestro, originally from the state of Guerrero and with a career spanning more than 40 years, tells La Jornada that his group has been a platform that allows him to create and address social issues without neglecting the artistic side.
"The fundamental aspect on which my work is based has to do with the problems facing society. I believe I'm the only choreographer in Mexico who creates contemporary dance about Afro-descendants, and this has generated the need to give visibility to this identity, which wasn't recognized until 2019.
This has also led me to engage in a certain activism when creating my works because I try to capture that aspect. Of course, there's always the question of identity, of what we consider to be Mexican, some values, principles, or customs that we have.
Aponte added that alongside this activism, she has created experimental pieces about the use of space, the connection with poetry and the visual arts, also drawing inspiration from other creators. "My works are also intimate and born from my poetic approach
," she added.
The choreographer, who was a founding member of Barro Rojo Arte Escénico in 1982, commented that his company has also allowed him to create pieces with different casts and to date has more than 60 creations, such as Túnel de luz , which he created in tribute to his mother after her death.
Countless collaborations
I feel fortunate to have had countless talented artist collaborators, from stage designers, musicians, lighting, costume, video, and set designers. I've found that, when the swell, storm, or hurricane hits, they have inspired me to find strength and hope to survive this uncertain and difficult task of making dance. I thank them all for their solidarity, fraternity, and support in this project
, he commented.
Thanks to these partnerships, the Serafín Aponte Danza company is celebrating its 25th anniversary with a special performance at the Teatro Varsovia today at 8 p.m., featuring choreographers Joel Valentin Martínez and Luis Eduardo Reséndiz.
It makes me very happy to celebrate with the work of two colleagues because contemporary dance is sustained through solidarity and, in Mexico, through fraternity and collaboration, given that conditions aren't entirely favorable for continued work. I always look for spaces that allow me to move forward, and these 25 years of Serafín Aponte Danza have led me to constantly reinvent myself because I've often lacked the support of institutions.
Tribute to Los Angeles
At the Warsaw Theater (Varsovia 9, Cuauhtémoc neighborhood), choreographer Joel Valentín Martínez will present his piece Cositas , a tribute to Los Angeles, a vibrant city with distinct identities and cultures, including Mexican and Chicano. The solo Polvo, inspired by the braceros who must migrate to another country, will also be performed.
“Choreographer Luis Eduardo Resendiz, who has collaborated with me for four years, will present a piece I asked him to revive because it deals with the theme of African descent. In this case, he was inspired by characters called Loas , who exist in Haitian culture. They are earth spirits who do good and create a space where people can find a profound act of faith and spirituality. He approaches it through his language, using Afro-descendant movements and contemporary modern techniques,” explained Serafín Aponte.
Armando G. Tejeda
Correspondent
La Jornada Newspaper, Thursday, July 3, 2025, p. 5
Madrid. The Fondo de Cultura Económica (FCE) received the Archiletras de la Lengua 2025 award in the institutional
category at the Casa de América in Madrid. This award recognizes this publishing group's 91-year history, which has made language a cultural mission
. In addition to the FCE, other prominent cultural figures were recognized, such as actor José Sacristán, Colombian poet Piedad Bonnett, and linguist and lexicographer Olimpia Andrés.
These awards are now in their fourth edition, maintaining the spirit with which they were born, with the aim of recognising, distinguishing, celebrating and honouring people, groups, entities and institutions that have distinguished themselves in the year immediately prior to the call for applications for their merits in the promotion, support, research and development of the Spanish language, in any of its dialectal varieties, or of some of the other languages in contact with Spanish in any of its territorial areas
.
The prizes, without monetary reward, award an original sculpture, specially made, which in this case was a metal work with a capital letter 'A' that decomposes behind the glass of a magnifying glass.
The institutional award was announced during the ceremony, which also included a shortlist of candidates; in addition to the FCE, the Ateneo de Madrid and the North American Academy of Language were also present. The jury ultimately chose the Mexican publisher, justifying this by highlighting that the award is being given to a Spanish-language publishing group founded and based in Mexico with a presence throughout Latin America. In its more than 90 years of history, it has published more than 10,000 works and has 5,000 of them still in circulation. Its catalog includes 65 Nobel Prize winners, 33 Cervantes Prize winners, and 29 Princess of Asturias Award recipients
.
The person in charge of accepting the award was Manuel José Lazcano, director of the FCE in Madrid, who stated in his acceptance speech that , in these 91 years of FCE history, we also want to thank our colleagues at the publishing house who, over the years, have been honoring and bringing works by Ibero-American authors from California to Valparaíso. And in the words of our director, Paco Ignacio Taibo II, "Don't forget that reading is both liberating and entertaining. And we invite you to join us in the fun
."
UNAM creates a commission to highlight the universal value of the University City
Lilian Hernández Osorio
La Jornada Newspaper, Thursday, July 3, 2025, p. 5
UNAM Rector Leonardo Lomelí signed an agreement creating the Special Commission for the Anniversary of the University City Central Campus of this institution as a World Heritage Site.
Noting that June 28, 2027, will mark 20 years since the central campus was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, he considered it appropriate for the commission to take charge of the preparations for this commemoration.
The goal, he said, is to highlight the universal value of this university area among sites around the world that boast artistic, cultural, or architectural value.
All decisions of the commission will be made by consensus, and they will be responsible for designing work plans to achieve efforts to recover the immovable artistic heritage of the University City.
They must also promote a culture of heritage conservation among the university community, in line with the UNESCO declaration made 18 years ago.
The declaration stated the following: The University City integrates urban planning, architecture, engineering, landscaping, and the fine arts, associating all elements with references to local traditions. The complex embodies social and cultural values of universal significance and has become one of the most important symbols of modernity in Latin America
.
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