Miami Herald columnist Andrés Oppenheimer wins award

Miami Herald columnist and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Andrés Oppenheimer won the VII ALGABA prize in biography, autobiography, memoirs, and historical research for a collection of columns that ran in the newspaper and elsewhere and will be published in the book The Non-United States of the Americas . The award came with a prize of $34,404.

``We all know that in our profession you're just as good as your last story but it's an honor to be recognized by your colleagues for previous work,'' Oppenheimer said. ``It's great that, once again, a major Spanish publishing house (Algaba) has recognized The Miami Herald's work on Latin America.''

The collection of columns ran in The Miami Herald and other newspapers for the past three years. The pieces examined the inability of Latin American countries to integrate. ``I don't remember when there were so many summits proclaiming Latin America integration and there were so many fights among Latin American presidents,'' Oppenheimer said.

Issues and leaders of Latin America at our doorstep

S ince the inaugural Americas Conference more than a decade ago, The Miami Herald has hosted dozens of Latin American presidents, emerging political power brokers, opposition leaders and dissidents. Yet few times has the conference been as timely as the one that begins on Tuesday.

In the midst of a political standoff in Honduras between ousted President Manuel Zelaya and defacto President Roberto Micheletti, the chief mediators in the impasse -- Costa Rican President Oscar Arias and Jose Miguel Insulza, secretary general of the Organization of American States -- will speak on Tuesday about that country's political crisis.

A day before heading to Haiti as the newly appointed U.N. special envoy, former President Bill Clinton will speak here about businessinitiatives to help the embattled country.

Cuba: 50 Years of Revolution

Journalists Ileana Varela and Juan Tamayo discuss the 50 years of the Cuban Revolution.

Q & A | Benjamin Moser: On Clarice Lispector

Trenton Daniel is a staff writer for The Miami Herald. He asked this of Benjamin Moser, author of ``Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector'' (Oxford University Press, $29.95):

Q: (Born to Jewish parents in Ukraine, Clarice Lispector was raised in Brazil and went on to write avante-garde novels and short stories that brought her fame in Latin America but scant recognition in the United States.) How did you come across Lispector in your readings, and why should she matter to English-speaking readers? And given the Swedish Academy's seeming interest in awarding the Nobel Prize in Literature to relatively little-known writers, do you think Lispector would have received the prize had she lived longer?

A: I came across Clarice Lispector in Portuguese class in college. I happened upon the language without knowing a single thing about it. And of all the things it led me to discover, the most unforgettable was Clarice Lispector, the mysterious, glamorous, tormented genius of Brazilian literature

Miami Herald Original Art Contest Official Rules

No purchase necessary. Contest begins on November 6, 2008 and ends November 21, 2008.

To enter, you must post an original piece of artwork on MiamiHerald.com/artbasel . You must upload a .jpeg or .gif file no larger than 500 kb. You must also include your name and valid e-mail address with the entry. All entries must be posted by 5 p.m. November 21, 2008. The work must not have been previously exhibited or published.