Kelley, Alita 1932–

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Kelley, Alita 1932–

(C.A. De Lomellini, Kathleen Alita Kelley)

PERSONAL: Born November 19, 1932, in Bradford, Yorkshire, England; daughter of Harry (a textile mill overseer) and Jeanette (a homemaker; maiden name, Chandler) Haley; married Carlos De Luchi Lomellini, September 17, 1951 (divorced May 25, 1970); married Alec Ervin Kelley (a professor of chemistry), May 29, 1970; children: (first marriage) Gianna Lomellini, Patricia Lomellini. Education: Attended University of Leeds, 1950–51; University of Arizona, B.A., 1981, M.A., 1986, Ph.D., 1992. Religion: "Humanist."

ADDRESSES: Home—154 Chandler Dr., West Chester, PA 19380-6805. Office—Department of Spanish and French, Pennsylvania State University, Delaware County Campus, 25 Yearsley Mill Rd., Media, PA 19063-5596. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Teacher of English as a second language in Lima and Cuzco, Peru, 1962–68; Wiesman and Co., Tucson, AZ, commercial translator and office manager, 1970–92; Pennsylvania State University, Delaware County Campus, Media, assistant professor, 1992–98, associate professor of Spanish and French, 1998–. Teacher of English and French literature and civilization at schools in Lima, 1963–68; U.S. Embassy, Lima, teacher of Italian, 1967–68. Hospitality International, member of Tucson board of directors, 1970–85; Humanist Community of Tucson, program coordinator, 1970–92.

MEMBER: International Society for Humor Studies, International Society for Luso-Hispanic Humor Studies, Modern Language Association of America, American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese, American Literary Translators Association, American Translators Association, Latin American Studies Association.

AWARDS, HONORS: Grants from Tinker Foundation, 1986–87, and National Endowment for the Humanities, 1993.

WRITINGS:

TRANSLATOR

(With husband Alec E. Kelley) José Promis, The Identity of Hispanoamerica, University of Arizona Press (Tucson, AZ), 1991.

Charles M. Tatum, editor, New Chicana/Chicano Writing 2, University of Arizona Press (Tucson, AZ), 1992.

(With Edith Grossman) Julio Ortega, Ayacucho, Goodbye; Moscow Gold: Two Novellas on Peruvian Politics and Violence, Latin American Literary Review Press (Pittsburgh, PA), 1994.

Carlos Fuentes and Julio Ortega, editors, The Picador Book of Latin American Stories, Picador Press (London, England), 1998.

Ciro A. Sandoval and Sandra M Boschetts-Sandoval, editors, José María Arguedas, Ohio University Press (Athens, OH), 1998.

POETRY; UNDER NAME C.A. DE LOMELLINI

(Translator) Jane Radcliffe, Lima Rooftops, Solo Press, 1978.

Shared Images, Rivelin Grapheme Press (Hungerford, Berkshire, England), 1982.

Dreams of Samarkand, Rivelin Grapheme Press (Hungerford, Berkshire, England), 1982.

Ineffable Joys, Redbeck Press (Bradford, England), 1983.

Antimacassars, Rivelin Grapheme Press (Hungerford, Berkshire, England), 1984.

(Translator and editor, with David Tipton) José Watanabe, Path through the Canefields, White Adder Press (East Linton, East Lothian, Scotland), 1992.

Target Practice, Redbeck Press (Bradford, England), 1994.

(Translator, with David Tipton) Tulio Mora, A Mountain Crowned by a Cemetery, Redbeck Press (Bradford, England), 2001.

Northern Paranoia and Southern Comfort, Redbeck Press (Bradford, England), 2003.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Translating The White Girl, a novel by Jorge Marchant Lazcano; translating Bolereando el llanto, poetry by Rosina Conde; research on translation theory and on contemporary Peruvian writers.

SIDELIGHTS: Alita Kelley once told CA: "My writing career began with translations when I was in my thirties. Although I had written poems and stories for my own amusement from the time I was a child, I never considered trying to publish them until I started publishing translations. Then I'm afraid I thought, 'I can do as well as this.'

"I never think in terms of writing books, only in getting ideas down. Often I write out of a sense of fear, or to affirm my existence to myself. I believe this to be my usual motivation. My working habits depend on my current modus vivendi. Earning a steady living has been an obsession all my life. When my work permits, I write regularly, very early in the morning. I write poetry when an idea comes to me and rewrite early in the morning; I am a morning person.

"Apart from affirming my existence to myself, I can't say I have ever felt a purpose exists for my writing, or for anything else. That wouldn't fit in with my outlook on existence, which I see as purposeless. I write because I feel a compulsion, but I can't explain it and don't understand it.

"The last writer I read influences me. I admire many writers enormously, but I don't think about their writing, or they would shame me into silence. I don't try to write like anyone else, consciously at least, but my interior life is permanently dialogical.

"If I were in a financial position to live as I would like to—independent, with no obligations and with time to write—I would spend four to five hours every morning writing. But who knows? I might dissipate the rest of my life drinking, overeating, and living it up."