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Book Title

Algarabía

Subtitle
The Song of Cenex, Natural Son of the Isle Alarabíyya
Author 1
Roque Raquel Salas Rivera
Poem Excerpt
I was flooded by overflowing sewers.
I was, they claimed,                woman
in a mansion attic. A dead, cancer-
ridden wife, seducing a decent man,
an infection administrators should
urgently extract from the student body.

Be warned. I had brought the TRANSITION.
—from Canto II

Me inundaron alcantarillas desbordadas
y yo era dizque una                 mujer
en el desván de una mansión. Una esposa
con cáncer, que a un buen hombre sedujo,
una infección en el cuerpo estudiantil.

Tengan cuidado. Yo había traído la TRANSICIÓN.
—de Canto II
Body
Algarabía is an epic poem that follows the journey of Cenex, a trans being who retrospectively narrates his life while navigating the stories told on his behalf.
 
An inhabitant of Algarabía, a colony of Earth in a parallel universe, Cenex struggles to find a name, a body, and a stable home. The song of Cenex weaves and clashes texts by cis writers on trans figures with fragments from historical, legal, and other nonliterary texts. Cenex leads us through his childhood hospitalization, his years as an experimental subject, a brief stay in suburbia, twisted meanderings, and not-so-far-off lands accompanied by a merry band of chosen queers.
 
Referencing everything from pop culture to Taino cosmology and philosophy (at times in a single line), this book laughs at its own survival with sharp, unserious rage. The edition is composed of two original texts—one written in the Puerto Rican dialect of Spanish, the other in a reconsideration of English. Algarabía inscribes an origin narrative for trans people in the face of their erasure from both colonial and anti-colonial literary canons.


Algarabía es una epopeya que sigue el viaje de Cenex, un ser trans que narra su vida retrospectivamente mientras navega por las historias contadas en su nombre.
 
Habitante de Algarabía, una colonia de la Tierra en un universo paralelo, Cenex lucha por encontrar un nombre, un cuerpo y un hogar estables. El canto de Cenex entreteje y enfrenta textos de escritores cis sobre figuras trans con fragmentos de textos históricos, documentos legales y otras fuentes extraliterarias. Su protagonista nos conduce a través de su hospitalización temprana, sus años como sujeto experimental, una breve estancia suburbana, meandros retorcidos y unas tierras no tan lejanas en la compañía de un grupo jovial de cuirs predilectos.
 
Poblado de referencias a la cultura popular, la cosmología taína y la filosofía (a veces dentro de un mismo verso), este libro se ríe de su propia supervivencia con una rabia pícara y aguda. La epopeya se compone de dos textos originales: uno que fue escrito en español puertorriqueño y el otro que fue escrito en un inglés alterado. Algarabía inscribe un origen para las personas trans ante su exclusión de los cánones literarios coloniales y anticoloniales.

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List Price
$25.00
ISBN
ISBN
978-1-64445-351-3
Format
Format
Paperback
Publication Date
Publication Date
Subject
Subject
Pages
Pages
448
Trim Size
Trim Size
7 x 9
Keynote
A Puerto Rican trans epic that blends poetic play and speculative fiction, by a Lambda Literary Award winner
 
Una epopeya puertorriqueña trans que mezcla poesía y narrativa especulativa, por un ganador del Premio Lambda

About the Author

Roque Raquel  Salas Rivera
Credit: Photographer Credit / Dirk Skiba
Roque Raquel Salas Rivera is a Puerto Rican poet and translator. The 2018-19 Poet Laureate of Philadelphia, he has received a Premio Nuevas Voces, a Juan Felipe Herrera Award, a Lambda Literary Award, and the inaugural Ambroggio Prize.
 
Roque Raquel Salas Rivera es un poeta y traductor puertorriqueño. El Poeta Laureado de Filadelfia del 2018-19, ha recibido los premios Nuevas Voces, Juan Felipe Herrera, Lambda, y el premio Ambroggio inaugural.
More by author

Upcoming Events

Roque Raquel Salas Rivera reading and in conversation about ALGARABÍA at Casa Aboy

Date:
Location:
Casa Aboy in San Juanview map

Roque Raquel Salas Rivera reading and in conversation with Kyle Carrero Lopez about ALGARABÍA, presented by Taylor & Co. Books

Date:
Location:
Offsite location TBD. Free and open to the public. Copies of Algarabía will be available for purchase from Taylor & Co. Books.

Roque Raquel Salas Rivera reading and in conversation with Tongo Eisen-Martin and Tim Seibles about ALGARABÍA at Allens Lane Art Center

Date:
Location:
Allens Lane Arts Center in Philadelphia, PAview map
LOCATION: Allens Lane Arts Center. Click here for details.

Roque Raquel Salas Rivera reading and in conversation with Tongo Eisen-Martin, Raina J. León, and Kirwyn Sutherland about ALGARABÍA at Free Library of Philadelphia

Date:
Location:
Free Library of Philadelphia in Philadelphia, PAview map
LOCATION: Joseph E. Coleman Northwest Regional Library (68 West Chelten Avenue, Philadelphia, PA). Free and open to the public. Click here for details.

Roque Raquel Salas Rivera reading and in conversation with Noa Micaela Fields about ALGARABÍA at Pilsen Community Books

Date:
Location:
Pilsen Community Books in Chicago, ILview map
Free and open to the public. Copies of Algarabía will be available for purchase from Pilsen Community Books. Click here for details.

Praise

  • “In Algarabía, Salas Rivera dances between abstract wordplay and character-driven epic narrative and ensures that every line sizzles your synapses with the urgent delights and betrayals of the trans fight for existence. . . . These stanzas feel like getting free.”—Dr. Sasha Costanza-Chock
  • Algarabía is epic, it is mythic, it is choral, it is song and story; it is a living poem that explores . . . the forms and traditions that we have inherited from this orphaned modernity so that we might narrate and poeticize individual and collective life. . . . Algarabía is a watershed, an occurrence.”—Sergio Gutiérrez Negrón
  • “A poetics that is not only epic, but speculative, a praise that hacks the system, a transtemporal escape where trans bodies reap the journey of those who paved the way. Algarabía is an invitation to fugue's faggotry, where pleasure and movement outshine patriotic and heroic discourse.”—Yuliana Ortiz Ruano
  • “In this bilingual edition from Puerto Rican poet Rivera, a trans being named Cenex recounts his life on a colony of Earth in a parallel universe.”Publishers Weekly
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