Juan Felipe Herrera conducts his inaugural reading as poet laureate at the Library of Congress in Washington.

 

The Library of Congress celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month with a series of events, tours, and gallery talks. All events are free and open to the public; no tickets or reservations are required.

 

Kicking off the month-long celebration was a reading by new Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera on Tuesday, Sept. 15th in the Coolidge Auditorium, located in the Thomas Jefferson Building in Washington, DC.

 

Additional events by the Library of Congress include:

 

An interactive presentation by music specialists on Latin Jazz on Thursday, Oct. 1, and the Puerto Rican cuatro on Tuesday, Oct. 6. Both presentations are at noon in the Mary Pickford Theater.

 

Historian and diplomat Gonzalo Quintero gives a talk on Bernardo de Gálvez, the commander of the Spanish forces that fought the British during the War of Independence, on Monday, Oct. 5, at noon in the Mary Pickford Theater.

 

Professor of History Michael Francis of the University of South Florida-St. Petersburg gives commemorative lecture celebrating the 450th anniversary of the founding of the city of St. Augustine, Florida, on Wednesday, Oct. 14, at noon in the West dining room, located on the sixth floor of the Library’s James Madison Building.

 

Specialized and bilingual tours and gallery talks are also being offered to the public in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month.

 

In addition to the programs and tours, the Library of Congress is also launching selections from the Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape (AHLOT) online. The AHLOT is a collection of nearly 700 audio recordings of prominent Hispanic writers reading from their work. Established in 1943 by the Library’s Hispanic Division, the archive includes recordings of figures such as Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, and Nobel Laureates Gabriela Mistral, Mario Vargas Llosa, Gabriel García Márquez, and Juan Ramón Jiménez. A sample from this collection is available online via streaming audio.

 

The Library of Congress’s Hispanic Division, established in 1939, is the center for the study of the cultures and societies of Hispanic/Latinos in the United States and Latin America, the Caribbean, the Iberian Peninsula, and other areas where Spanish or Portuguese influence have been significant. For more information, visit www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/