Authors: Thomas Glave (Editor), Jose Alcantara Almanzar (Contribution by), Aldo Alvarez (Contribution by), Reinaldo Arenas (Contribution by), Rane Arroyo
ISBN-13: 9780822342083, ISBN-10: 0822342081
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Duke University Press Books
Date Published: May 2008
Edition: (Non-applicable)
Thomas Glave is the author of Whose Song? And Other Stories; the essay collection Words to Our Now: Imagination and Dissent, a Lambda Literary Award winner; and the forthcoming short fiction collection, The Torturer’s Wife. Born to Jamaican parents in the Bronx and raised there and in Jamaica, Glave is a founding member of the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG). He teaches in the English Department at the State University of New York, Binghamton, and is the 2008–2009 Martin Luther King, Jr. Visiting Professor in the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Book Synopsis
An anthology of queer writing from the Caribbean.
Publishers Weekly
This sometimes sexy, sometimes dry, but often lush collection of stories by Caribbean gay and lesbian writers is a mixed bag. Certain selections, such as Wesley E.A. Crichlow's "History, (Re)Memory, Testimony, and Biomythography" and Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes's heavily footnoted "Postdata: metatextual wings of a dove" will likely put off all but academics. More accessible are Michelle Cliff's "Ecce Homo," a tale of star-crossed male lovers in Rome during WWII, which has the romantic distance of a sepia photograph, and José Alcántara Almánzar's portrayal of a transvestite in "Lulú or the Metamorphosis." Many of the writings from the 1990s tackle oppression and are tragic in tone. Shani Mootoo's sassy patois story, "Out on Main Street," about how she and her girlfriend negotiate their sexuality in a sweet shop, is refreshingly upbeat, and Audre Lorde's two stories, one about rebuilding in St. Croix after hurricane Hugo, the other a meditation on home and her mother's nostalgia for Grenada-neither of which addresses sexuality-widen the book's somewhat claustrophobic focus. (June)
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Desire through the Archipelago Thomas Glave 1
Lulu or the Metamorphosis (1995) Jose Alcantara Almanzar 13
Property Values (2001) Aldo Alvarez 21
Eroticism (1992) Reinaldo Arenas 34
Three Poems: Saturday Night in San Juan with the Right Sailors (2004) Almost a Revolution for Two in Bed (2004) Tropical Fever (2003) Rane Arroyo 51
Three Poems: Transactions (2001) San Francisco-New Orleans (2001) The Image Saves (1994) Jesus J. Barquet 53
Somebody Has to Cry (1998) Marilyn Bobes 57
Elizete, Beckoned (1996) Dionne Brand 70
"Bullers" and "Battymen": Contesting Homophobia in Black Popular Culture and Contemporary Caribbean Literature (1997) Timothy S. Chin 78
Ecce Homo (2002) Michelle Cliff 97
History, (Re) Memory, Testimony, and Biomythography: Charting a Buller Man's Trinidadian Past (2004) Wesley E. A. Crichlow 101
Other Islanders on Lesbos: A Retrospective Look at the History of Lesbians in Cuba (2004) Mabel Cuesta 132
Autonomy in Lesbian-Feminist Politics (2004) Ochy Curiel 142
Three Poems: YoungFaggot (2003) The Magical Real (2003) Surrender (2003) Faizal Deen 153
The Portrait (1998) Pedro De Jesus 158
Tante Merle (1999) R. Erica Doyle 173
Whose Caribbean? An Allegory, in Part (2005) Thomas Glave 177
More Notes on the Invisibility of Caribbean Lesbians (2005) Rosamond S. King 191
Independence Day Letter (2004) Helen Klonaris 197
Travel Notes of a Queer Puerto Rican in Havana (2002) Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes 202
Of Generators and Survival: Hugo Letter (1990) From Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982) Audre Lorde 233
Out on Main Street (1993) Shani Mootoo 252
Time and Tide (2002) Anton Nimblett 261
We Came All the Way from Cuba So You Could Dress Like This? (1994) Achy Obejas 268
The Hunter (1999) Leonardo Padura Fuentes 281
The Face (1956) Virgilio Pinera 290
Dale and Ian (1994) Patricia Powell 296
Genesis (2003) Kevin Everod Quashie 304
Bayamon, Brooklyn y yo (1987) Juanita Ramos 308
The Mechanic (1998) Colin Robinson 316
Haiti: A Memory Journey (1996) Assotto Saint 320
Johnnie, London, 1960 (1960) Andrew Salkey 325
I Want to Follow My Friend (1994) Lawrence Scott 336
Man Royals and Sodomites: Some Thoughts on the Invisibility of Afro-Caribbean Lesbians (1992) Makeda Silvera 344
Jerome (1993) H. Nigel Thomas 355
Fragments of Toronto's Black Queer Community: From a Life Still Being Lived (2005) Rinaldo Walcott 360
Mati-ism and Black Lesbianism: Two Idealtypical Expressions of Female Homosexuality in Black Communities of the Diaspora (1996) Gloria Wekker 368
On Homophobia and Gay Rights Activism in Jamaica (2000) Lawson Williams 382
Glossary 389
Contributors 393
Subjects