Roberto Elvira Mathez

Dr. Roberto Elvira Mathez has recently joined the GlobaLS – Global Literary Studies Research Lab at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) as a Juan de la Cierva Postdoctoral Researcher. His current project examines how the translation of Indigenous Latin American literature into Spanish and Portuguese can function both as a bridge and as a barrier in the global circulation of this cultural production, with particular attention to publishing circuits, language policies, and dynamics of cultural mediation.

His research has focused on literature produced in working-class neighborhoods in Latin America, adopting a comparative perspective on the relationships between writing, territory, and urban marginality in Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina.

He earned his PhD at the City University of New York (CUNY), where he also taught at Brooklyn College and other U.S. universities. He previously studied Philology in Argentina and completed master’s degrees in Stockholm and Porto, thus consolidating an international academic trajectory spanning Europe and the Americas.

In addition to his academic career, he is the author of three short story collections and has translated several works of Scandinavian and Lusophone poetry into Spanish. He recently received the Ciudad de Badajoz Poetry Prize for his first poetry collection, Lenguas extintas.

Born in Tarragona and raised in Argentina, this transnational trajectory informs both his research and his writing, which engage with diverse literary traditions from a comparative perspective.