The writer and journalist Rosa Montero will visit the Headquarters of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), the Teide Observatory and the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory from June 20th to 24th, within the multidisciplinary project "En un lugar del Universo..." which celebrates the IV centenary of the death of Miguel de Cervantes, bringing together Literature and Astronomy.
On Monday June 20th the writer will arrive at the IAC Headquarters where she will have interviews with the Director and with scientific and technical staff of the Institute. On Tuesday 21st she will visit the Teide Observatory at Izaña (Tenerife) and on Wednesday 22nd she will travel to the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in Garafía (La Palma). At both observatories she will have the opportunity to see the installations, the results, and the projects of the scientific institutions involved. In La Palma she will be shown the largest optical-infrared telescope in the world, the Gran Telescopio CANARIAS, and will attend a workshop of night-time astronomical observation. On Friday 24th she will return to Tenerife to learn about the technological, teaching, and outreach projects which are being undertaken at the IAC, and will visit the Museum of Science and the Cosmos.
Rosa Montero is the second of a series of writers who will be visiting the Observatories. The project will also bring to the islands in the coming months other well-known figures on the Spanish literary scene, so that they can receive the inspiration of the cosmos and commit their vision of astronomy to a book of short stories whose aim is to help a solidarity project related to Alzheimer’s disease.
As well as the participation of the IAC, the project “In a certain place in the Universe” is being supported by the international scientific institutions present in the Canary Island Observatories and by the Museum of Science and the Cosmos, of Museums of Tenerife, as well as receiving support from the Instituto Cervantes, and fuding from the Severo Ochoa programme.
Rosa Montero was born in Madrid and studied journalism and psychology. She worked in independent theatre groups such as Canon and Tábano and began to publish in a number of news media such as Fotogramas, Pueblo and Posible. From the end of 1976 she worked exclusively for the daily newspaper El País, in which she was the Editor in Chief of the Sunday Supplement during 1980 and 1981. In 1978 she won the Mundo de Entrevistas prize, and in 1980 the National Prize for Journalism, for reports and literary articles. In 2005 she was awarded the Prize of the Press Association of Madrid for her full professional life. Her work includes narratives, short stories, and newspaper articles, as well as several novels, among which we should pick out Te trataré como a una reina (1983), La hija del caníbal (1997), La ridícula idea de no volver a verte (2013), and finally, El peso del corazón (2015), She has won many awards, and her work has been translated into over 20 languages. Additionally she has an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Puerto Rico, and won the International Prize journalists of the world 2014.
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