James Irby

Position
Emeritus Professor
Office
359 East Pyne
Bio/Description

Profile

James Irby, Professor Emeritus, specializes in modern Latin American literature, particularly fiction and the lyric since 1880. At Princeton he has taught Spanish and Portuguese language, Spanish American literature, Brazilian literature and comparative modern fiction.

Irby created and taught the first Latin American literature courses ever to be given at Princeton on both the undergraduate and graduate levels. A founding member of the Program in Latin American Studies, he was its director from 1978 to 1981. He has also been a visiting professor at the Colegio de Mexico; University of California, Berkeley; and Bryn Mawr College.

Co-editor and translator of Jorge Luis Borges' Labyrinths: Stories and Other Writings (1964, 1970 and 1983), he has published articles on Borges, Onetti, Cortazar, Lezama Lima and other Latin American writers and served on the editorial boards of Revista Ibero-americana, Nueva Revista de Filología Hispanica and Dispositio.

Education

  • PhD, University of Michigan
  • MA, National Autonomous University of Mexico