Writing in English, Dreaming in Spanish

James Cañòn quit his job as a waiter at Hell’s Kitchen last week, just as his first book, “Tales From the Town of Widows & Chronicles From the Land of Men” (HarperCollins), hit bookstores. “I think it’s time to give my writing full attention,” the 38-year-old writer said Monday at his book party at Sueños, a Mexican restaurant he picked because some waiter friends work there. Soon he’ll leave his home in Long Island City to promote the book, which tells of a fictional Colombian mountain village whose men have left to join communist guerillas. Mr. Cañòn’s writing has been compared to the magic realism of Gabriel Garcia Márquez. Book tour stops include Oblong Books & Music in Rhinebeck, the Barnes & Noble in Park Slope, and Prairie Lights Bookstore in Iowa City, a more than presentable itinerary for a debut literary novelist with an MFA from Columbia, an agent from ICM, and an exotic backstory.

At the age of 25, Mr. Cañòn moved to New York from his native Colombia, where he had been working in advertising. “I wanted to learn English and get a better job,” he said. He did that, but he also rediscovered writing. “The talent was always there, but I wasn’t encouraged,” he said. “I wrote poetry as a child, but I stopped in high school and I did no writing in college.”

America was a more nurturing environment where people recognized his gift. “There are students that you just know right away, they got it. James is one of them,” one of his professors, Binnie Kirshenbaum, said.

“I knew he had a book from our first workshop in grad school,” Scott Snyder, who published a short story collection last year, said. “I admire his patience, to hold out until the work was ready, even if it meant waiting tables and scrounging.”

Perhaps the discovery of the English language turned Mr. Cañòn into a writer. “English is an amazing language. I love it. I love how it keeps changing and reinventing itself,” he said. Spanish, meanwhile, is for thinking, dreaming, and counting money, but not writing. “I am not interested in translating my work into Spanish,” he said.

Still, his source material comes from his homeland, in particular his mother and sister. They and his father and four brothers remain in Colombia. The only relative at the party was his brother Hernan.

“My mother is at home cooking dinner right now,” Mr. Cañòn said in a wistful tone before proposing a toast to women everywhere.

Bright Lights, Big Sculpture

The crowds at Long Island City’s SculptureCenter’s opening Sunday had plenty of creative stimulation, although one work in particular brought on a few headaches. The blinking lights of Monica Bonvicini’ssculpture, “Built for Crime,” in the main space, at first glance stirred the thrill of Broadway. But the feeling was fleeting. Some wondered if it would have been a crime to turn it off. No one thought about it more seriously than the bartender, who stoically faced the sculpture while selling beer for $2.

Most visitors fled to the basement, where artist Alex Arcadia, in his signature floppy hat, showed off his paintings and sculpture under a dull but constant light. He was one of nine artists displaying work commissioned for the center’s “In Practice” series, which features site-specific work by emerging artists.

Karen Yasinskymade a stop-motion animation video, “La Nuit,” starring sock puppets as lovers who struggle through a night of forced separation. It seemed that love, not crime, would win the day: Ms. Bonvicini’s more likeable work was a mirrored sculpture in the outside courtyard spelling “Desire.”

agordon@nysun.com