The Mad People of Paris

Rodrigo Blanco Calderón is a Venezuelan writer from Caracas. He completed his doctorate in literature and linguistics from Paris XIII University with a dissertation on the work of his literary mentor, Venezuelan writer Juan Carlos Méndez Guédez. He has published several collections of stories, among them Una larga fila de hombres, Los Invencibles, Las rayas and Los terneros. He has also published two novels, The Night and Simpatía, both translated into English by Daniel Hahn and Noel Hernández González. A translation of his short story 'Payaso' (Clown) appears in the anthology Crude Words: Contemporary Writing from Venezuela.