Kevane, Bridget

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KEVANE, Bridget

PERSONAL: Female. Education: Sarah Lawrence College, B.A., 1985; New York University, M.A., 1989; University of California at Los Angeles, Ph.D., 1996.

ADDRESSES: Offıce—Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, Montana State University at Bozeman, P.O. Box 172980, Bozeman, MT 59717. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Montana State University at Bozeman, Bozeman, associate professor of Spanish.

WRITINGS:

(Editor, with Juanita Heredia, and author of introduction) Latina Self-Portraits: Interviews with Contemporary Women Writers, University of New Mexico Press (Albuquerque, NM), 2000.

Latino Literature in America, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 2003.

Contributor to periodicals, including Journal of Iberian Studies, Journal of American Studies, Latin-American Literary Review Press, Hispania, Revista monográfica, and MaComére: Journal of the Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars.

SIDELIGHTS: Montana State University professor Bridget Kevane has published two books about Latin-American literature: Latina Self-Portraits: Interviews with Contemporary Women Writers, which she coedited, and Latino Literature in America. The former contains interviews with ten acclaimed Latina authors, including Sandra Cisneros, Esmeralda Santiago, Judith Ortez Cofer, and Denise Chavez. Although these authors have different backgrounds, eight of the ten are roughly the same age, they have all published in English, and all but one makes her home in the United States. Some themes in the interviews tie them together as well, such as the feeling these authors have of being outsiders in their own country. The editors of the collection allow the authors to speak for themselves without additional commentary, though "an excellent bibliography" is included, according to Penelope Power in a Kliatt review. Power concluded that Latina Self-Portraits is "the next best thing to hearing a writer talk about his or her craft."

Kevane followed this work with her Latino Literature in America, in which she discusses eight Latino writers, both male and female, including such luminaries as Rudolfo Anaya, Cisneros, and Oscar Hijuelos. Each author "represent[s] a different Latino culture," according to Library Journal contributor Nedra Crowe-Evers, noting Kevane's attempt to offer readers a representational sample of the broad spectrum of Latino literature. Kevane discusses each author's contributions in depth, but Crowe-Evers felt that this selective sampling means that the book will not be as useful for students as would a more inclusive survey of Latino literature. However, the critic praised the "excellent biographical and critical information" included here.