Share

How a Venezuelan Immigrant Became One of the U.S.' Most Celebrated Playwrights

By Rachelle Krygier

Moisés Kaufman, a winner of this year's National Medal of Arts, has spent two decades making socially-conscious theater in the U.S.

One evening in September, while sitting in a cab in midtown Manhattan, Moisés Kaufman got a phone call telling him he’d been selected to receive the National Medal of Arts, the U.S.’ government’s highest artistic honor. “The first thing I said was ‘Are you sure you got the right number?’” Kaufman told AQ between laughs.

That the 53-year-old playwright and theater director is surprised by his own success is perhaps understandable. Growing up in an orthodox Jewish household in Catholic Venezuela, Kaufman’s sense of being an outsider was made doubly acute by the realization,...

Read this article on the Americas Quarterly website. | Subscribe to AQ.

Related

Explore