Lit & Luz: 2025 Keynote Address with Marcelo Hernandez Castillo

Please join us at Pueblo Unido Gallery at Centro Romero for the Lit & Luz Festival’s 2025 Keynote Address on this year’s festival theme, Repair/Reparar, by critically-acclaimed author and poet, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo.

On this special occasion, Castillo will read a number of unreleased poems as well as selected excerpts from International Latino Book Award Finalist Children of the Land: a Memoir (Harper Collins, 2020).

After the address and reading, Castillo will be joined by author and Lit & Luz founding Artistic Director, Daniel Borzutzky, for an intimate conversation on Castillo’s writing.

Meet the author after the event for a book signing and a complimentary cafecito reception to celebrate the beginning of the festival week!

Presented in partnership with the Lit & Luz Festival, UIC’s Center for Latinx Literature of the Americas, and Pueblo Unido Gallery.

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The 12th annual Lit & Luz Festival of Language, Literature, and Art—as featured in, WBEZ’s Reset with Sasha-Ann Simons, Chicago Review of Books, Block Club Chicago, and more—takes place November 9 to November 14, 2025. This one-of-a-kind cross-cultural, bilingual festival brings together writers, poets, and visual artists from Mexico and Chicago for a week-long series of public programming at venues throughout Chicago.

This year’s festival––under the theme of “Repair/Reparar”–– explores how writers, poets, and artists from Chicago and Mexico critically examine the artist’s role in impacting and offering new perspectives on what it takes to face and reimagine our shared realities.

To learn more, visit litluz.org

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