Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes’ Uñas pintadas de azul/Blue Fingernails (2009) is a collection of short stories, many of which present a rewriting, referencing, or response to works by well-known Latin American authors that have explored queer sexualities. Writer Mayra Santos Febres praises Blue Fingernails for its intertextual play and “conversation” with these writers, who now “configure a literary canon of Latin American gay writing.” These short stories present an homage of sorts to writers such as Manuel Ramos Otero (Puerto Rico), Néstor Perlongher (Argentina), Manuel Puig (Argentina), and Pedro Lemebel (Chile).
The description from Bilingual Review Press reads:
These short stories represent a Latin/o American poetic journey, a sensory pilgrimage through the pains and pleasures of diasporic, cosmopolitan gay and lesbian Puerto Rican identities in a postmodern, ever-shifting world. The tales touch on urban experiences throughout the Americas, at times incorporating elements of science fiction, vampires, detectives, and fantasy, but mostly focusing on the difficulties of mad, passionate love and its inevitable demise. Oscillating between humor and sadness, the stories are meant for readers who are not afraid of controversial ideas or taboo topics like sadomasochism, transvestism, prostitution, and pornography. Experimental and metaliterary, this is an important contribution to queer Latino/a and Puerto Rican letters.
A review by Jean Roberta (of Rainbow Reviews) states that “Readers who are looking for a conventional plot will be disappointed by this book, but readers who enjoy poetic imagery and language-play (including the double negatives that add emphasis in Spanish, and the musical sound of vulgar or insulting Spanish words) will be entertained.”
For review by Jean Roberta (in English), see http://www.rainbow-reviews.com/?p=1320
For review by Mayra Santos Febres (in Spanish), see http://mayrasantosfebres.blogspot.com/2009/04/unas-pintadas-de-azul.html
For purchasing information, see http://www.amazon.com/U%C3%B1as-Pintadas-Fingernails-Spanish-English/dp/1931010331
Dear Dr. Romero, thank you for your kind and generous posting on Uñas pintadas de azul/Blue Fingernails, my book of short stories! And congratulations for this wonderful blog on Caribbean culture, literature, and the arts. Larry La Fountain, Ann Arbor, Michigan
By: Larry La Fountain on January 5, 2010
at 5:23 pm
De nada, de nada. Thank you so much for your kind words.
By: ivetteromero on January 5, 2010
at 9:41 pm
[...] in a postmodern world” and Queer Ricans: Cultures and Sexualities in the Diaspora. [See New Book: Uñas pintadas de azul/Blue Fingernails and New Book: Queer Ricans, Cultures and Sexualities in the [...]
By: Larry La Fountain-Stokes at Taller Puertorriqueño « Repeating Islands on September 25, 2011
at 8:39 am