We are eagerly awaiting a new book by Marta Aponte Alsina, Literaturas de países pequeños: Islas Vírgenes [Literatures of small countries: Virgin Islands] to be published this Fall (2026) by Editora Educación Emergente (EEE) as part of their “Otra crítica” series. Note that pre-sale ends tonight! Reserve your copies at a special pre-sale price by emailing the publishers at editora@editoraemergente.com.

This book “navigate[s] the literary landscape of authors from Puerto Rico’s neighboring archipelago, the Virgin Islands.” See full description below.

Description (from EEE): LITERATURAS DE PAÍSES PEQUEÑOS: LAS VÍRGENES, by Marta Aponte Alsina, aspires to navigate the literary landscape of the archipelago near Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and to reclaim the adjective “minor” when referring to the literatures of small countries. [Translator’s note: This play on words refers to the Spanish use of “menor” (younger, smaller, lesser, orminor), from the name Antillas Menores. In English, it would be the adjective “lesser,” from the name Lesser Antilles.]  The author/reader’s journey of discovery through a selection of writings from St. Thomas, St. Croix, St. John, and Tortola interconnects these islands and extends the connection to the rest of the Caribbean, especially to  Puerto Rico. This exercise, undertaken by a rigorous yet gentle narrator and literary comparatist, recognizes that writing, whether in poetry or prose, constitutes an awareness of one’s own identity in places that are often invisible from a Eurocentric or even a Latin American perspective.

The preparation for this book began as a response to a statement: Puerto Rican literature is “minor,” belonging to an insignificant country. A shift in perspective, moving from “minor literature” to “literature of small countries,” reveals the potential richness of considering that the networks, evident or invisible, between small countries and their literatures fuel calls for freedom: “Let us be islands to stop being fragile bridges, pirate dens. Places of quaint advertising. Let us be islands to protect ancestral bones, stories, the legends of trees, the names of poisonous fruits and healing plants, not only as examples of traditional knowledge, but as the modern medicines of the poor.”

The Otra crítica series from Editora Educación Emergente is illuminated by this book and reiterates, with Marta Aponte Alsina, let us be those islands…

Translated from EEE’s description (included on the book’s back cover). For more information, see https://www.editoraemergente.com/index.php

For a copy of the book, write to editora@editoraemergente.com.