"This American Life" is going to have to make some room for a new show. Like the popular NPR show, "Radio Ambulante" hopes to push the art of personal storytelling into the homes of Americans through a Spanish-language audio show. The show is the brainchild of Daniel Alarcon, author of the acclaimed novel "Lost City Radio."
Alarcon told New York Daily News that what he hopes to do is entirely new for Spanish language media. "We're entering a space of culture production that no one's using," the 35-year-old author tells the Daily News. "There's no one out there doing what we propose to do on a Latin American scale."
The stories that he will focous on will be of the human interest variety that go behind headlines as well as tell new stories from marginalized segments of the Latin American world. But he's quick to point out that the project is not about news per say.
Alacron said that the goal of the project is to give voice to people whose voices are not widely heard. "What we're doing is different. It's the more compelling human narratives behind the headlines and examining stories and sub cultures and unexpected places and characters," he said.
Radio Ambulante's name was inspired by street vendors, common fixtures in Latin American neighborhoods, who Alacron says are "the eyes and ears of the community."
In 2010, Alacron was hailed as a rising star in the literary world by the New Yorker in its "20 under 40" recognition for promising authors.
Radio Ambulante is currently online but Alacron hopes a broadcaster will pick up the show in the near future.
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