The University of Arizona Press
Date: Sunday, April 21, 2024
Time: 4:00 p.m. – 4:40 p.m., PDT
Where: Latinidad Stage, USC campus, Los Angeles, CA
Alan Pelaez Lopez, editor of When Language Broke Open: An Anthology of Queer and Trans Black Writers of Latin American Descent, will speak on “Everything Latinidad: Challenging the Myth of the Monolith” at the 2024 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on Sunday, April 21. Pelaez Lopez is an Afro-Indigenous poet and installation and adornment artist from Oaxaca, Mexico. Their work attends to the realities of undocumented migrants in the United States, the Black condition in Latin America, and the transgender imagination. They will be on the Latinidad Stage from 4:00 p.m. to 4:40 p.m. Events on the outdoor Latinidad Stage are free and open to the public.
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.
