>>Uñas pintadas de azul/Blue Fingernails

ISBN: 1-931010-33-1
344 pp. | paper only | $18.00

by Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes

These 14 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, with intertextual allusions to the work of other gay writers such as Manuel Ramos Otero, Manuel Puig, and David Wojnarowicz, Uñas pintadas de azul/Blue Fingernails is an important contribution to queer Latino/a and Puerto Rican letters.   Bilingual edition.