Poets, Philosophers, Lovers

On the Writings of Giannina Braschi

The fifteen essays in this book, written by as many scholars of literature, make up a scholarly collection on the work. They are also a rare tribute to a Puerto Rican writer who has overcome the usual pigeonholing with which the voice of our people is usually silenced.
Cambio16

Request Exam or Desk Copy. Request Review Copy

With a foreword by Ilan Stavans

This collection of essays, by fifteen scholars across diverse fields, explores forty years of writing by Giannina Braschi, one of the most revolutionary Latinx authors of her generation. Since the 1980s, Braschi’s linguistic and structural ingenuities, radical thinking, and poetic hilarity have spanned the genres of theatre, poetry, fiction, essay, musical, manifesto, political philosophy, and spoken word. Her best-known titles are El imperio de los sueños, Yo-Yo Boing!, and United States of Banana. She writes in Spanish, Spanglish, and English and embraces timely and enduring subjects: love, liberty, creativity, environment, economy, censorship, borders, immigration, debt, incarceration, colonialization, terrorism, and revolution. Her work has been widely adapted into theater, photography, film, lithography, painting, sculpture, comics, and music. The essays in this volume explore the marvelous ways that Braschi’s texts shake upside down our ideas of ourselves and enrich our understanding of how powerful narratives can wake us to our higher expectations.

about the editors

Frederick Luis Aldama

Frederick Luis Aldama, aka Professor Latinx, is the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities and founder and director of the Latinx Pop Lab at the University of Texas, as well as adjunct Distinguished University Professor at The Ohio State University. He is an award-winning author of dozens of books as well as editor of nine academic press book series. His fiction includes the children’s books The Adventures of Chupacabra Charlie and Con Papá/With Papá.

learn more
Frederick Luis Aldama
Tess O'Dwyer

Tess O’Dwyer won the Columbia University Translation Center Award for her rendition of Giannina Braschi’s postmodern poetry epic Empire of Dreams and translated Braschi’s Spanglish classic Yo-Yo Boing! as well as Martin Rivas by Alberto Blest Gana. She is the Chairman of the Board of the Academy of American Poets.

learn more
Tess O'Dwyer