Download or read book Sirena Selena written by Mayra Santos-Febres and published by Picador. This book was released on 2007-04-01 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discovered by Martha Divine in the backstreets of San Juan, picking over garbage, drugged out of his mind and singing boleros that transfix the listener, a fifteen year old hustler is transformed into Sirena Selena, a diva whose uncanny beauty and irrisistable voice will be their ticket to fame and fortune. Auditioning for one of the luxury hotels in the Dominican Republic, Selena casts her spell over Hugo Graubel, one of the hotel's rich investors. Graubel is a powerful man in the Republic, married with children. Silena, determined to escape the poverty and abuse s/he suffered as a child, engages Graubel in a long seduction in this mordant, intensely lyrical tragi-comedy - part masque, part cabaret - about identity (class, race, gender) and "the hunger and desire to be other things."
Download or read book Sirena Selena written by Mayra Santos-Febres and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2000-08-05 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Brought by Martha to audition for one of the luxury hotels in the Dominican Republic, Selena casts his/her spell over Hugo Graubel, one of the hotel's rich investors. Graubel is a powerful man in the Republic, married with children, but hiding his true sexual nature. Sirena, determined to escape the poverty and abuse s/he suffered as a child, engages Graubel in a long seduction in this mordant, intensely lyrical tragicomedy."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book San Juan Noir Spanish language edition Akashic Noir written by Mayra Santos-Febres and published by Akashic Books. This book was released on 2016-10-04 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Puerto Rico's capital city enters the Noir Series arena, meticulously edited by one of San Juan's best-known authors. “A welcomed addition to the publisher’s popular noir series, San Juan Noir has the distinction of being issued in two editions, English and Spanish, to more accurately reflect the Caribbean island’s bilingual culture. Editor Santos-Febres gathers a varied collection of stories she expects will ‘reveal a side of Puerto Rico otherwise obscured by the tourist trade and preconception.’” —NBC News Latino Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book. Brand-new stories by: Wilfredo J. Burgos Matos, Ernesto Quiñonez, Mayra Santos-Febres, José Rabelo, Luis Negrón, Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro, Ana María Fuster Lavín, Janette Becerra, Manolo Núñez Negrón, Tere Dávila, Edmaris Carazo, Alejandro Álvarez Nieves, Charlie Vázquez, and Manuel A. Meléndez. Translated by Will Vanderhyden.
Download or read book Any Wednesday I m Yours written by Mayra Santos-Febres and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Julián Castrodad, ex-reporter and aspiring novelist, takes a job working the night shift at the Motel Tulán. The guest go largely unnoticed until the morning one is found dead and two are gone missing.
Download or read book Relocating Identities in Latin American Cultures written by Elizabeth Montes Garcés and published by University of Calgary Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection explores the perpetually changing notion of Latin American identity, particularly as illustrated in literature and other forms of cultural expression. Editor Elizabeth Montes Garcés has gathered contributions from specialists who examine the effects of such major phenomena as migration, globalization, and gender on the construct of Latin American identities, and, as such, are reshaping the traditional understanding of Latin America's cultural history. The contributors to this volume are experts in Latin American literature and culture. Covering a diverse range of genres from poetry to film, their essays explore themes such as feminism, deconstruction, and postcolonial theory as they are reflected in the Latin American cultural milieu.
Download or read book Our Lady of the Night written by Mayra Santos-Febres and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-07-28 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From internationally-acclaimed novelist Mayra Santos-Febres comes a carnal, epic novel about the life of Isabel “La Negra” Luberza--a legendary Puerto Rican madam who, by the end of World War II, became the most powerful woman on the island. Born into poverty and then abandoned by her mother, Isabel "La Negra" Luberza blossoms into a supremely sensual young woman. Obsessed with attaining aristocratic status—armed with incredible physical presence, indomitable ambition, and keen intelligence—she meets Fernando Fornarís, the man who will forever change her life. With a parcel of land given to her by her rich, white married lover, Isabel transforms herself into a hard-edged and merciless businesswoman—abandoning her own newborn son to become Puerto Rico's most feared and respected madam, a collector of society's secrets, a queen of the notorious brothel that emerges as the island's true political and economic heart. Set against the rich backdrop of the Caribbean and the United States during the tumultuous years of World War II, Mayra Santos-Febres's Our Lady of the Night is a breathtaking novel of passion, power, and the devastating price of achieving everything one wishes for.
Download or read book Dreaming of You written by Melissa Lozada-Oliva and published by Astra Publishing House. This book was released on 2022-09-27 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NOW IN PAPERBACK FEATURING A SHORT STORY FROM THE FORTHCOMING COLLECTION BEYOND ALL REASONABLE DOUBT, JESUS IS ALIVE "A macabre love story that casts an inquisitive eye on Latinidad, womanhood, and celebrity worship." —Keely Weiss, Harper's Bazaar "Melissa Lozada-Oliva's surreal novel-in-verse is sure to delight and surprise readers . . . You may know and love Selena's voice, but Lozada-Oliva's is utterly new, original, and worth hearing, too." —Elena Nicolaou, Oprah Daily A macabre novel in verse of loss, longing, and identity crises following a poet who resurrects pop star Selena from the dead. Melissa Lozada-Oliva's Dreaming of You is an absurd yet heartfelt examination of celebrity worship. A young Latinx poet grappling with loneliness and heartache decides one day to bring Tejano pop star Selena Quintanilla back to life. The séance kicks off an uncanny trip narrated by a Greek chorus of gossiping spirits as she journeys through a dead celebrity prom, encounters her shadow self, and performs karaoke in hell. In visceral poems embodying millennial angst, paragraph-long conversations overheard at her local coffeeshop, and unhinged Twitter rants, Lozada-Oliva reveals an eerie, sometimes gruesome, yet moving love story. Playfully morbid and profoundly candid, an interrogation of Latinidad, womanhood, obsession, and disillusionment, Dreaming of You grapples with the cost of being seen for your truest self.
Download or read book The Rain God written by Arturo Islas and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-01-19 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Rain God is a lost masterpiece that helped launch a legion of writers. Its return, in times like these, is a plot twist that perhaps only Arturo Islas himself could have conjured. May it win many new readers." — Luis Alberto Urrea, bestselling author of The House of Broken Angels and The Hummingbird’s Daughter "Rivers, rivulets, fountains and waters flow, but never return to their joyful beginnings; anxiously they hasten on to the vast realms of the Rain God." A beloved Southwestern classic—as beautiful, subtle and profound as the desert itself—Arturo Islas's The Rain God is a breathtaking masterwork of contemporary literature. Set in a fictional small town on the Texas-Mexico border, it tells the funny, sad and quietly outrageous saga of the children and grandchildren of Mama Chona the indomitable matriarch of the Angel clan who fled the bullets and blood of the 1911 revolution for a gringo land of promise. In bold creative strokes, Islas paints on unforgettable family portrait of souls haunted by ghosts and madness--sinners torn by loves, lusts and dangerous desires. From gentle hearts plagued by violence and epic delusions to a child who con foretell the coming of rain in the sweet scent of angels, here is a rich and poignant tale of outcasts struggling to live and die with dignity . . . and to hold onto their past while embracing an unsteady future.
Download or read book Out of Bounds written by Dara E. Goldman and published by Associated University Presse. This book was released on 2008 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Out of Bounds teases out the intricacies of a territorial conception of nationhood in the context of a global reorganization that ostensibly renders historical boundaries irrelevant. Hispanic Caribbean writers have traditionally pointed toward the supposed perfect equivalence of island and nation and have explained local culture as a direct consequence of that equation. The major social, political, and demographic shifts of the twentieth century increasingly call this equation into question, yet authors continue to assert its existence and its centrality in the evolution of Caribbean identity. The author contends that traditional forms of identification have not been eviscerated by globalization; instead, they have persisted and, in some cases, have been intensified by recent geopolitical shifts. Out of Bounds underscores the ongoing role of the nation as the site of identity formation. In this manner, the book presents Hispanic Caribbean cultural production as a case study that acutely dramatizes the paradoxical status of traditional demarcations of self-definition in an increasingly globalized context.
Download or read book Erzul e s Skirt written by Ana-Mauríne Lara and published by Redbone Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fiction. African American Studies. LGBT Studies. Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Debut Fiction. Set in the age of urbanization in the Dominican Republic over the course of several lifetimes, ERZULIE'S SKIRT is a tale of how women and their families struggle with love, tragedy and destiny. Told from the perspectives of three women, ERZULIE'S SKIRT takes us from rural villages and sugar cane plantations to the poor neighborhoods of Santo Domingo, and through the journey by yola across the sea between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. It is a compelling love story that unearths our deep ancestral connections to land, ritual and memory.
Download or read book Representing Queer and Transgender Identity written by Alexandra Gonzenbach Perkins and published by Bucknell University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-04 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fluid Bodies traces the intersections of global movement with transgender and queer identities from authors and artists of the Hispanic Caribbean. Utilizing the theme of fluidity and travel, Fluid Bodies analyzes novels, graphic novels, theatre, and performance art. These works demonstrate how transgender and queer bodies redefine belonging, particularly national belonging, through global movement and community making practices. Through these genres, the text follows the movement of transgender and queer identities from textual spaces to spaces of the body. The gradual movement from text to body—as it occurs in these genres—demonstrates the variety of representational strategies that dismantle binary readings of gender, sexuality, and nationality. Transgender visibility is a pressing social issue, and today’s transgender moment will be a social and political necessity for years to come. Of particular importance are representations of transgender and/or queer people of color. The field of transgender representation is growing, and Fluid Bodies adds to the visibility of transgender and queer identity from the Hispanic Caribbean. By investigating the relationship between novels, graphic novels, theatre, and performance art, Fluid Bodies emphasizes how each work plays on and against the separation of language and the body, and how Hispanic Caribbean authors and artists represent transgender and queer identity in order to redefine cultural and national belonging in various geographic spaces.
Download or read book Daughters of the Diaspora written by Miriam DeCosta-Willis and published by Ian Randle Publishers. This book was released on 2003 with total page 553 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Daughters of the Diaspora features the creative writing of 20 Hispanophone women of African descent, as well as the interpretive essays of 15 literary critics. The collection is unique in its combination of genres, including poetry, short stories, essays, excerpts from novels and personal narratives, many of which are being translated into English for the first time. They address issues of ethnicity, sexuality, social class and self-representation and in so doing shape a revolutionary discourse that questions and subverts historical assumptions and literary conventions. Miriam DeCosta-Willis's comprehensive Introduction, biographical sketches of the authors and their chronological arrangement within the text, provide an accessible history of the evolution of an Afra-Hispanic literary tradition in the Caribbean, Africa and Latin America. The book will be useful as textbook in courses in Africana Studies, Women's Studies, Caribbean, Latina and Latin American Studies as well as courses in literature and the humanities.
Download or read book Boat People written by Mayra Santos-Febres and published by . This book was released on 2021-06-15 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Poetry. African & African American Studies. Latinx Studies. Translated by Vanessa Pérez-Rosario. Mayra Santos-Febres is one of our most powerful writers, and BOAT PEOPLE has long been a part of the poetic counter-tradition that shaped generations of Puerto Rican poets. Thanks to Vanessa Pérez-Rosario, English-language readers are now plunged into the depths of a text that, to echo Patrick Chamoiseau, is composed of 'that strange conference of poets and great beings, ' lost at sea, tossed on shores, or caught in a world without return address or safe passage. Written like a border drawn on water, this oceanic book is both a source of life and a record of death. It remains as devastatingly urgent as the day it was written.--Raquel Salas Rivera The ocean in BOAT PEOPLE is haunted and the book is the heartbreaking journey from sea to horizon. Melancholy and songlike, Santos-Febres documents the nameless, the chum: bodies set adrift by commerce. Like M. NourBese Philips's Zong!, this phenomenal translation in which I become 'a drop of fish sweat, ' my body dancing to the poetry's music but also lamenting the violences that underlie it.--Carmen Giménez Smith
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to the Latin American Novel written by Efraín Kristal and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-05-26 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The diverse countries of Latin America have produced a lively and ever evolving tradition of novels, many of which are read in translation all over the world. This Companion offers a broad overview of the novel's history and analyses in depth several representative works by, for example, Gabriel García Márquez, Machado de Assis, Isabel Allende and Mario Vargas Llosa. The essays collected here offer several entryways into the understanding and appreciation of the Latin American novel in Spanish-speaking America and Brazil. The volume conveys a real sense of the heterogeneity of Latin American literature, highlighting regions whose cultural and geopolitical particularities are often overlooked. Indispensable to students of Latin American or Hispanic studies and those interested in comparative literature and the development of the novel as genre, the Companion features a comprehensive bibliography and chronology and concludes with an essay about the success of Latin American novels in translation.
Download or read book The Plantation in the Postslavery Imagination written by Elizabeth Christine Russ and published by Imagining the Americas. This book was released on 2009 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author examines the persistent presence of the plantation in trans-American literatures of the last century. She conceives the plantation to be not primarily a physical location, but rather an ideological and psychological trope through which intersecting histories of the New World are told and retold.
Download or read book Drown written by Junot Díaz and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1997-07-01 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the beloved and award-winning author Junot Díaz, a spellbinding saga of a family’s journey through the New World. A coming-of-age story of unparalleled power, Drown introduced the world to Junot Díaz's exhilarating talents. It also introduced an unforgettable narrator— Yunior, the haunted, brilliant young man who tracks his family’s precarious journey from the barrios of Santo Domingo to the tenements of industrial New Jersey, and their epic passage from hope to loss to something like love. Here is the soulful, unsparing book that made Díaz a literary sensation.
Download or read book Island Bodies written by Rosamond S. King and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2014-05-13 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Island Bodies, Rosamond King examines sexualities, violence, and repression in the Caribbean experience. She analyzes the sexual norms and expectations portrayed in Caribbean and diaspora literature, music, film, and popular culture to show how many individuals contest traditional roles by maneuvering within and/or trying to change their society’s binary gender systems. She skillfully argues and demonstrates that these transgressions better represent Caribbean culture than the “official” representations perpetuated by governmental elites and often codified into laws that reinforce patriarchal, heterosexual stereotypes. Unique in its breadth and its multilingual and multidisciplinary approach, Island Bodies addresses homosexuality, interracial relations, transgender people, and women’s sexual agency in Dutch, Francophone, Anglophone, and Hispanophone works of Caribbean literature. Additionally, King explores the paradoxical nature of sexuality across the region: discussing sexuality in public is often considered taboo, yet the tourism economy trades on portraying Caribbean residents as hypersexualized. Ultimately King reveals that despite the varied national specificity, differing colonial legacies, and linguistic diversity across the islands, there are striking similarities in the ways Caribglobal cultures attempt to restrict sexuality and in the ways individuals explore and transgress those boundaries.
