When James Cañón reads at El Museo del Barrio tomorrow night, he’ll be taking a brief break from his month-long residency at Ledig House, one of many writer’s retreats in which the young novelist has participated. We met a few weeks ago, just before he left the city, and he was excited to be spending an extended period of time in the company of other international authors while he resumes work on his second novel. In the meantime, his first novel, Tales From the Town of Widows & Chronicles From the Land of Men, is on the shortlist for both the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award and the Lambda Literary Award for debut gay fiction. Not too shabby for a book Cañón wrote while building up his fluency in English. (“I still live in my first language pretty much,” he said as we chatted, commenting upon the ease with which one can conduct one’s life in Spanish in New York City.)
“Of course I was thrilled,” he says of the dual nominations, which were announced within a week of each other. “It’s very gratifying to know that someone values your work to that extent. I write mostly for myself, but I hope that what I write will resonate with an audience—but you never know who that will be.” And though on a surface level the novel, which takes place in a Colombian village after (nearly) all the men have been “recruited” by a band of passing guerrillas, doesn’t sound like “gay fiction” (whatever that’s supposed to be), the diverse cast of characters appears to have won over the two judging committees—Cañón is the only author to appear on both shortlists. The Edmund White Award will be presented at the end of April at the Publishing Triangle Awards, and the Lambdas will follow a month later during BookExpo weekend.