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Poets, Philosophers, Lovers: On the Writings of Giannina Braschi Edited by Frederick Luis Aldama and Tess O'Dwyer Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020 ISBN: 978-0-8229-4618-2 168 pages; $45.00 [cloth]
Giannina Braschi is one of the most multifaceted and innovative diasporic Puerto Rican writers of the past decades. Her literary works, published in English, Spanish, and Spanglish, and translated into various languages have revolutionized Puerto Rican Literature, both on and off the island. Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Braschi's creative and intellectual world extends far beyond geographic, linguistic, historical, and cultural boundaries to embrace another dimension of the tangible and the imagined in her efforts to form part of a literary tradition that she constantly renews and reinvents.
Braschi's literary production begins with verse in Spanish, reflecting her humanistic erudition and vast knowledge of literature, art, philosophy, and world history that feeds into her poetic imagery. Her poetry collection, El imperio de los sueños, published in 1988 coalesces previous collections (Asalto al tiempo, La comedia profana, and El imperio de los sueños). In 1994, the work was translated into English by Tess O'Dwyer. The University of Puerto Rico Press released a new edition in 2000, with an introduction by UPR professor and philosopher Francisco José Ramos.
Braschi moved on to hybrid narrative experimentation, developed through the juxtaposition of genres (fiction, poetry, drama) and languages (Spanish and English) that defy and problematize narratological categorization in her work titled Yo-Yo Boing!, published by Latin American Literary Review in 1998. She later followed up with a publication full of multiple narrative voices and characters that traverse historical eras and literary movements in an attempt to unravel life's significance within a transnational lens and postmodern perspective in United States of Banana (2011). In the same year of this publication, Amazon Crossing for World Literature also issued a collected works version of Braschi's writing that included Empire of Dreams, Yo-Yo Boing! and United States of Banana. In 2021, a version of United States of...