New from House of Nehesi Press.

Columbus, the Moor by Charles Matz.

From the depths of his personal experiences, plotted through a diversity founded in World War and international academic acclaim, Charles Matz brings us a unique glimpse into the mindset of cultural contact between the New and Old Worlds, reminiscent of his CAM Art genre. With Columbus, the Moor, Matz opens the music of Earth’s breast, from the naivety of Arawakan illusions that the strange bearded white brothers have become natives themselves, to the cynical jests of a Eurocentric logic of burden that the heathens must be freed of their solitude. Matz mystically takes us to those moments when the stars moved and gravity shifted, beyond the invisible to where dusty breath warnings from a termite crew, fell on deaf ears filled with grandeur.
Charles Matz, poet, novelist, dramaturge, and performer. He created shout poetry, using techniques of oral and music composition, and based in part on traditional forms from the European Mediterranean area and Africa. Matz has contributed articles on contemporary artistic concepts to Opera News, Vogue, Testuale, and Digraphe-Mercure de France. Matz has worked with Norman Mailer and Andrea Zanzotto. A literature professor at Long Island University—his specialties are Dante and Comparative Western Literature (chiefly Italian and French). This is the first publishing of COLUMBUS, THE MOOR as one book of the performance text in English along with the Spanish, French, and Italian translations—all four texts include Taino (Arawak), Latin, and other languages. Matz taught in the university system of Italy for many years and is a Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur of France.