Nicolás Kanellos: 1945—: Publisher, Editor Biography

Nicolás Kanellos: 1945—: Publisher, editor.

Nicolás Kanellos has devoted his distinguished academic career to publishing works of Hispanic literature and scholarship in the United States. Through Arte Público Press, which he founded in 1979, he has published a wealth of material that has introduced Hispanic writing to mainstream readers. As he once commented in Contemporary Authors,, "As a publisher of Hispanic literature in the United States, I feel like a missionary who has to convert people to their own religion and identity. Hispanic culture has always been a part of the United States and its identity. People do not realize this, because the publishing and intellectual establishment have kept it a secret while selling us on an old-world identity.… Arte Público Press intends to give back to the United States its many varied peoples."

Kanellos, whose ancestry is Puerto Rican on his moth-er's side and Greek on his father's, was born in New York City in 1945. He majored in Spanish at Fairleigh Dickinson University, and then earned a master's degree in Romance languages and a doctorate in Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Texas at Austin. He also attended the University of Lisbon in Portugal and the Universidad Autónoma de México, where he studied Mexican literature, history, and culture. His scholarly publications on Hispanic theater are among the most widely read works in the field.