User:Cacarica/William Spindler

William Spindler Li is a Guatemalan writer and journalist. His works include fiction, poetry and journalism in English and Spanish. He is the author of a book of short stories, “Expediciones”, published in Bogota, Colombia in 2004 and an unpublished novel “Países lejanos”. His non-fiction work has appeared in The Financial Times, The Spectator and the Encyclopedia of Latin American Literature, among others.

Spindler Li was born in Guatemala City, Guatemala, on 2 July, 1963. He was educated at the Liceo Guatemala school where he obtained a Bachillerato en Ciencias y Letras in September 1980. He completed his further education in London after his family moved there in 1981. In 1988 he graduated from the Polytechnic of the South Bank (now the University of the South Bank) in London with a BA (Hons.) in Modern Languages and International Studies. As a student, Spindler Li began to contribute articles, short stories, poetry and book reviews to various newspapers and magazines in the UK. He wrote both in English and Spanish, sometimes using both his surnames but more often shortening his name to William Spindler. While studying for a Masters degree at the University of Southampton, Spindler and other Latin American students founded the literary review Encuentros which published fiction, poetry and criticism. In 1996, Spindler obtained a PhD from the Department of Art History and Theory of the University of Essex, for his work on magic realism and the Latin American novel. His article "Magic realism: a typology" is often quoted in scholarly works on the subject.

William Spindler is currently a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), one the world’s leading humanitarian organisations, which helps over 31 million people around the world.