Antonio Benítez-Rojo, the Thomas B. Walton, Jr., professor of Spanish, passed away on Jan. 5 at Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton from a brief illness. Benítez-Rojo, who was 73 years old, is survived by his wife, Hilda Benítez, Senior Lecturer and Language Program Director of Spanish at the College, and his son, Jorge.

Many of Benítez-Rojo's students felt fortunate to have had the opportunity to get to know him. "He was simply one of those great professors that is exciting to discover; [he was] someone who I was looking forward to taking more classes from in the future," said Elizabeth Hunt '06. "He was truly brilliant."

Steve Shasy '08 was particularly thankful that, as a first-year student, he had the chance to get to know Benítez-Rojo. "He was engaged with the material that he taught, and I think he compelled his students to be as well. I felt that he took an interest in us that went beyond the three hours of classroom time each week," noted Shasy. "I often talked with him outside class about movies, books and music that we both enjoyed."

Benítez-Rojo was known for his inspiring and unique bonds with his students. "I would feel so at ease around Tony. He was so comfortable and accepting of all natural things," said Brandt Tullis '07. "He was extremely humble. He had the unique gift of harboring both a sophisticated intellect and a deep appreciation of the simple pleasures in life." Tullis recollected one of his last memories of Benítez-Rojo last semester. "His eyes lit up when, during our last class together, he explained each tiny detail of his Christmas dinner. From the way he described it, you would think he was talking about the most engrossing, awe-inspiring thing," recalled Tullis. "In fact, he had a way of making anything seem amazing. I loved him very much and I'll miss having him around."

Dean of the Faculty Gregory Call noted how devastating the loss of such an accomplished man has been to the community. "A prolific writer and extremely influential scholar of Caribbean literature and culture, Antonio was widely recognized by his colleagues for his generosity and humor," said Call. "All of us are deeply saddened by his passing."

Devoted friends and colleagues of Benítez-Rojo will miss his guidance. Professor of French and European Studies Ronald Rosbottom noted that Benítez-Rojo let neither success nor fame get in the way of his daily life. "Few men of his reputation, constantly feted and admired by a growing public, remain as lovable, as human as did Tony," said Rosbottom. "I counted on him for good advice and reasoned counsel, and I counted on his friendship to guide my own decisions, especially in terms of our mutual discipline: literature and its effects on culture."

Professor of Spanish James Maraniss recalled the personal impact Benítez-Rojo had on his own life. "I was bored with being an academic until I began a new life as his translator, and in a sense his presenter to the English-speaking world, to share that degree of his power, which was that of a great artist," he said. "He was the only world-historical figure that I've known at Amherst. I don't think the College knew what it had, except for the students who did."

Professor Benítez-Rojo, a native of Cuba, was widely recognized as being on the critical cutting edge of creative writing in Caribbean literature. In 1967, he received one of Latin America's most prestigious literary awards, the Casa de las Americas Prize, for his collection of short stories entitled "Tute de Reyes." His theories on chaos and the Caribbean earned him a distinguished place in academia.

When he first arrived in the United States in the 1980s, Benítez-Rojo held visiting positions at a number of institutions including Harvard, Yale, Brown and Emory Universities. He was both a consulting editor of the New World Studies series as well as a member of the editorial or advisory boards of the following publications: Atlantic Studies, Latin American Literature and Arts, Hispanic Review, The Amazon Literary Review and more.

In 1993, Professor Benítez-Rojo's book, "The Repeating Island: The Caribbean and the Postmodern Perspective," won the Modern Language Association's Katherine Singer Kovacs Prize for an outstanding book in the field of Latin American and Spanish literatures and cultures. His novel, "Sea of Lentils," was reviewed by John Updike in The New Yorker and listed as a Notable Book of 1992 in The New York Times Book Review. All of these works, including his most recent collection of short stories, "A View from the Mangrove," have been translated into English.

The measure of Professor Benítez-Rojo's success can be read in over 50 anthologies, among them "The Oxford Book of Latin American Short Stories," and in nine languages, including French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Czech, Bulgarian, Hungarian and Turkish. Aside from being a thriving novelist, short-story writer and essayist, Professor Benítez-Rojo was also skilled at screenplay writing. In 1979 he wrote the award-winning screenplay for the movie "Los Sobrevivientes," which was based on one of his short stories.

Students and faculty alike were struck by the sadness of Professor Benítez-Rojo's passing. "His loss is immeasurable to his friends, his public, and his family," concluded Rosbottom. "Antonio was a wise and cannily practical colleague. He was a diplomat, and a man of honor. When he gave his word, you never had to remind him later. He had a broad curiosity about life, customs and people."