The University of Arizona Press
Date: Wednesday, April 17, 2024
Time: 5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m., EST
Where: Register for Zoom event here
Alan Pelaez Lopez, editor of When Language Broke Open: An Anthology of Queer and Trans Black Writers of Latin American Descent, will read their poetry and be in conversation with poet Desiree C. Bailey at “Black Poetic Freedom Dreams,” presented by Rutgers Institute for the Study of Global Justice Relations. Pelaez Lopez’s work attends to the quotidian realities of undocumented migrants in the United States, Black resistance in the Pacific, and intimate kinship units that trans and nonbinary people build in the face of violence.
The event is free and open to the public, register for Zoom event here.
About the book:
When Language Broke Open collects the creative offerings of forty-five queer and trans Black writers of Latin American descent who use poetry, prose, and visual art to illustrate Blackness as a geopolitical experience that is always changing. Telling stories of Black Latinidades, this anthology centers the multifaceted realities of the LGBTQ community. By exploring themes of memory, care, and futurity, these contributions expand understandings of Blackness in Latin America, the Caribbean, and their U.S.-based diasporas. The works collected in this anthology encompass a multitude of genres—including poetry, autobiography, short stories, diaries, visual art, and a graphic memoir—and feature the voices of established writers alongside emerging voices. Together, the contributors challenge everything we think we know about gender, sexuality, race, and what it means to experience a livable life.
