William Luis

William Luis is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of Spanish at Vanderbilt University, where he has held a faculty appointment since 1991.

Early life and education He was born and raised in New York City to parents of Afro-Cuban and Chinese heritage. He received a bachelor of arts degree from Binghamton University in 1971, followed by a master of arts degree in Ibero-American Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a master of arts degree from Cornell University. He graduated from Cornell with Ph.D. in 1980.

Career At Vanderbilt University, Luis served as the director of Latino and Latina Studies and is the editor of the Afro-Hispanic Review. He has also taught at Dartmouth College, Washington University in St. Louis, Binghamton University, and Yale University. He was a Guggenheim Fellow (2012–2013).

Literary bondage: slavery in Cuban narrative. University of Texas Press, 1990. "The Politics of Memory and Miguel Barnet's The Autobiography of a Run Away Slave." MLN 104.2 (1989): 475-491. Culture and customs of Cuba. Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2000. "A Search for Identity in Julia Alvarez's How the García Girls Lost Their Accents." Callaloo 23.3 (2000): 839-849. Dance between two cultures: Latino Caribbean literature written in the United States. Vanderbilt University Press, 2001. Lunes de Revolución: Literatura y cultura en los primeros años de la Revolución Cubana. Editorial Verbum, 2003. Manzano, Juan Francisco. Autobiografía Del Esclavo Poeta Y Otros Escritos. (Edition by Luis). Iberoamericana; Vervuert, 2007.