United States of Banana

by Giannina Braschi

Groundbreaking Puerto Rican novelist and poet Giannina Braschi continues her exploration of the Hispanic-American experience in this vibrant new allegorical novel, her first written originally in English. It takes place at the Statue of Liberty in post-9/11 New York City, where Hamlet, Zarathustra, and Giannina are on a quest to free the Puerto Rican prisoner Segismundo. Segismundo has been imprisoned for more than one hundred years in the dungeon of liberty, hidden away by his father, the king of the United States of Banana, for the simple crime of being born. But when the king remarries, he frees his son and, for the sake of reconciliation, makes Puerto Rico the fifty-first state and grants American passports to all Latin American citizens. This staggering show of benevolence rocks the global community, causing an unexpected power shift with far-reaching implications. In a world struggling to realign itself in favor of liberty, United States of Banana serves as a beautifully written declaration of personal independence.

Genres: Fiction, Magical Realism, Contemporary, Latinx, Philosophy, Education, Novels

305 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 13, 2011

About the author

Giannina Braschi is a Puerto Rican writer. She is credited with writing the first Spanglish novel YO-YO BOING! (1998), the postmodern poetry trilogy Empire of Dreams (Yale, 1994), and the explosive new work of philosophical fiction United States of Banana, (Amazon Crossing, 2011), which chronicles the Latin American immigrant's experiences in the United States.

"For decades, Dominican and Puerto Rican authors have carried out a linguistic revolution," noted The Boston Globe, and "Giannina Braschi, especially in her novel YO-YO BOING!, testify to it."

Her work has been described as a "synergetic fusion that marks in a determinant fashion the lived experiences of U. S. Hispanics."Written in three languages, English, Spanglish, and Spanish, Braschi's work captures the cultural experience of nearly 50 million Hispanic Americans and also seeks to explore the three political options of Puerto Rico: Nation, Colony, or Statehood.

On the subject of the Island's lack of sovereignty, Braschi stated, "Liberty is not an option (to be voted upon)—it is a human right."

Reviews

[Literary Translator · Rating 5 out of 5]

Giannina Braschi's originality is not only refreshing, but intellectually thrilling. "Original" is the first word that comes to mind upon reading United States of Banana. Then comes "profound" and soon upon it "revolutionary". Stylistically and structurally, this book is a hybrid of essays, short stories, and drama with flares of political philosophy. It's a brilliant, humorous critique of contemporary American culture during the Bush-Obama era, a turning point for the empire. The work envisions the powers of the world shifting in favor of poets, philosophers, and lovers--and away from the era of brokers, bankers, politicians, and lawyers. The businessman is dead. Braschi posits that Americans fell into the pit of ground zero as citizens of the American empire and crawled out of that pit as Italian citizens. Humor and hope abound. Note that none of Braschi's books are for the breezy reader looking for entertainment, but rather for the intensely devout literary mind, one with a great sense of humor and a love of poetic language. Who is a match? Ideally, someone well versed in the classics who is adventurous is spirit. Someone who is not necessarily looking for plot, but rather for meaning and beauty. I love this book. If you appreciate radical thinkers such as Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Helene Cixous, Judith Butler, Noam Chomsky, Malcolm X, Slavoj Žižek
and Jean Baudrillard, you'll love this book too.

[Edward Rathke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely brilliant. Hilarious, intelligent, linguistically beautiful, and politically relevant. If you've any interest in Latin American/US politics, poetry, philosophy, then this is a book for you.

Really impressed by this book, which begins as a series of monologues by the author, Hamlet, and Zarathustra, but becomes a conversation between them and various other historical and contemporary people about the fate of Puerto Rico, in relation to the US.

Maybe the most impressive part about this is that, though its steeped in philosophy and politics and allusions, it never stops being funny. I often think that works that carry serious ideas rarely realise the importance of humor, but Braschi doesn't.

My interview with Giannina Braschi at Monkeybicycle.

[TereG · Rating 5 out of 5]

United States of Banana is a big book about big ideas. Like other postmodern cross-genre literary works, this offers a dizzying array of avant-garde techniques but does so, in the words of the Latinx critic John Riofrio, in the service of “ trenchant critiques of social issues”. Braschi’s Hysterical Realism takes on far-ranging current events such as global debt structures, exploited labor forces, unprecedented immigration flows around the globe, mass incarceration of the poor and disenfranchised, financial terrorism, the stock market crashes, statelessness, and the collapse of the American Empire. Wow! That’s a whole lot of ideas to swirl around in one book. But it works because this is not a plot driven novel, but rather a prophetic and profound read of humanity, akin to Thus Spoke Zarathustra, but with a sense of humor to boot. Pure genius.

[John Hubbard · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this. I like the sentiments. I like the playfulness. I didn't like the book, however. I had to plow through it on a couple of trans-Pacific flights.

There is some amazing imagery (statue of liberty's vagina and Hamlet, etc.), some very poignant lines and funny bits. I just could barely make it through this.

[Ed Erwin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Incomprehensible. I gave up about 1/4 in.

[K's Bognoter · Rating 2 out of 5]

A piece of postmodernist, political-literary mouth diarrhea featuring Zarathustra (in the #nietzschean gestalt), Shakespeare's Hamlet and his mother, Segismundo and his father, Socrates, the Statue of Liberty herself and many more… "United States of Banana" is full of humor and sharp satirical subtleties. And Giannina Braschi without doubt has a message to deliver. But, unfortunately, Braschi lacks the literary virtues of moderation and the ability to focus. And this quickly makes reading the book a somewhat boring affair to be honest.
.
Full book review at bognoter.dk (in Danish): https://bognoter.dk/2019/01/25/gianni...

[Nicole Kroger Joy · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you're into avant-garde, postmodern literature, this is for you. It wasn't for me. While I appreciate its stylistic experimentation and some very beautifully written excerpts, it quickly became monotonous and overindulgent. This was written for those who have an in-depth knowledge and enjoyment of both classical literature and philosophy, and love to have hours-long philosophical debates. I very much agree with another reviewer here that describes this as "political-literary mouth diarrhea" and that Braschi "lacks the literary virtues of moderation".

[Spencer Wright · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was really interesting and I like her writing, but I didn't personally like the book too much.

[Guilherme Vasconcelos · Rating 2 out of 5]

Massante

[Keren Verna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Se me hace difícil poner estrellas a esta obra. Encontré el libro en amazon y leí la muestra que ofrece y me encantó.
Las primeras páginas son, para mí, las más interesantes del libro. Narra sobre el 11S y la experiencia de una inmigrante de Puerto Rico y su vida en EEUU. El tono es irónico, con una mirada que me gustó mucho y sobre todo, con un toque de excentricidad.
Luego, de repente, se torna otra cosa, una especie de ensayo que a mí no me aportó nada nuevo. Se me tornó muy elevado que hable de la "Libertad" la Estatua de la Libertad y de romper cadenas y otras cuestiones que sentí ya se habló hace mucho tiempo atrás. Además, se suma Hamlet y otros estereotipos que son demasiado clásicos y suma demasiada altura a los dichos un tanto trillados.
Una pena porque pintaba muy interesante. De todas maneras, buscaré algo más para leer ya que me quedé con ganas de que siguiera la primera parte de la novela que le quedó trunca.

[Carlos · Rating 1 out of 5]

Don’t read this expecting a novel or anything close to a coherent work. To say that Braschi’s writing style is disorientating would be a massive understatement. While glimpses can be seen of cogent arguments, these quickly dissolve into word play, silly ditties and abrupt topic changes. While the very many literary references feel tantalizingly close to making sense, it is beyond frustrating to see these go nowhere or devolve into absurdist ramblings. Perhaps the kindest thing that could be said is that Braschi is pioneering a radically postmodern style of … something.

[Eiji Tsujimoto]

interesting blend of styles

[Vikas Datta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite interesting...

[Pimpo Gregor · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is an entertaining novel but the parody gig grows a little old early on. Still, it is interesting and it got some good lines to quote.

[nethescurial · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I will create a country you will not discover unless you read me first."

Potentially reality-restructuring with no exaggeration... kind of feels like exactly what I fucking needed to fully reinvigorate my Reading Brain which has kind of been off its mojo over the past couple months. This is a monumental work of art - and the fact its praises aren't being sung as one of the best books of the century so far is fucking criminal, though that's to be expected for something that so brazenly sets itself outside the status quo even while understanding the surrounding imperial culture that informed it. While unlikely to ever get this reputation in her lifetime, Braschi should without a doubt be considered one of the great thinkers of our time, I suspect I'll just keep doubling down on this take the more I read [and reread] her work... I try to keep my mind open to most of the books I read, I usually enjoy books because life is too short not to see the good in things, but even among enjoyable books only rarely do I ever come across one in which the act of experiencing it actually felt like a watershed moment for me. The passion oozing from every pore of this book cannot be ignored, it demands to be focused on, its energy is actually infectious in the strongest sense, which is in keeping with the main themes and drives of the book. No bounds, no pesky genre distinctions and labels - it's not even distinguishable at any moment between fact and fiction, or even any structural frameworks you could try to pin it within, every box you could try to fit it into would have you tripping over your words, which Giannina never does by the way, no matter how much she can [apparently]* digress from page to page. If someone were to say a work this singular and this passionate and of itself [despite and because of its ostensible appearance as being Farce in some sections] is messy or "unedited" and thus somehow bad, then I urge them to reconsider as it would be undermining the inspired ethos of a book like this and the importance of allowing oneself to embrace the feelings brought on by its unfamiliarity. Enjoyment of books is of course subjective, but I don't think there's any fair way to completely write something like this off just because it is unlike what we're culturally acclimated to. Just ask yourself what you may get out of it if you can meet this on its wavelength, because a book like this only ever rarely comes around. This type of art should at least appreciated instead of resigned to the dustbin of history, where no art should be in really, but especially not this kind. Give it a generous chance, as Giannina Braschi does for the reader throughout all 300 pages of it.

Really, the biggest resonance I made with this was not through just the formal inventiveness and writerly prowess [incredible btw; I'd say this is mainly a poetic work, though it is of course also prose and neither], but mainly the voice guiding me through all of it... Giannina is no doubt one of the most incredible people I've ever read about and I can literally feel it just through her voice. Death of the author is a theory I subscribe to but it's through a work like this that I realize my past proclivity of completely shutting out the author in favor of your own experience ** can unnecessarily shut out the potential that arises when you can, through art, focus on in a sense getting to "know" the person writing it, beyond just the surface level of enjoying the story. This is boldly autobiographical, though it can't strictly be called autobiography of course, for Giannina's inward sprawl expands outwardly from herself to an examination of the external world, where she spends much time trying to suss out her place in amidst political and spiritual turbulence. Giannina is conversational but teacherly, warm and cold at the same time; compassionan existing exists harmoniously alongside frustration and fury, you're sent into a torrent of this very complex mind and must meet Giannina there on her terms. She knows this is her book and this is her podium to stand at and trusts that you will agree to hear her out. Opening her heart to the reader through her own seemingly madcap interpretation of truth, it soon becomes clear that her ideas are far more rooted in reason and beauty than the lies we are told about these concepts in the system we are molded in, the same one she also realizes her part in playing into, just like all of us in our own ways. The book is an invitation into another person's mind, and through it her understanding of the world, which will in turn enriches the reader's.

The nearly infinite capacity for empathy and building bridges between author and reader has become, to me, maybe one of the highest and most profound goals that art can strive for in general - at the very least it's probably what keeps me coming back to art above all else, especially as someone who is very isolated from the outside world. Nowhere but within a book can you come closest to having a conversation with someone you will never meet which, I think, feels like the closest thing to an M.O. as this book has. If you hate politics in your books, if you think people should just sit down and shut up about their situations and "get to the point", then you will not enjoy this book. If you're willing to listen to someone with a fiery messy-but-genius mind then delve into their truth with you, however, there is so much to be gotten out of this. Giannina Braschi leaves you plenty of room, it's dense but perfectly readable, perfectly paced, which somehow feels weird to say for a work so non-narratively focused, but she is such a compelling writer and thinker that I was incapable of stopping myself from turning the pages, even when I got completely lost [which only added to the book's fun factor and was bolstered by the amount of levity and lightness emanating from Giannina's kind voice]. You'd benefit by being well-read on classic literature and philosophy, but Braschi is her own thinker and supplemental reading isn't required at all. It isn't a flawless book, it has peaks and valleys, just like Giannina's life and everyone else's, if the book was spotless its impact would be lessened, it would be Just Another Great Book. And this is a great book, as I've hopefully made clear already, but not just another one, if you catch my drift.

It's also profoundly Not Bleak which is especially impressive for a book so fixated on the ripple effects of the War on Terror, imperialism, the modern surveillance/information age... something like this could have easily ended up becoming an exercise in philosophical pessimism, but Giannina's vision of the future is so much more suggestive of the unstoppable advent of liberation. There would be no reason, after all, to write about the struggle for freedom of a people who are still very much Not Free if there was no driving belief that this freedom was possible, and even more audaciously Inevitable. I think one of the core themes of the book is personal revolution, that change can only begin individually from the person who realizes change is necessary [especially as it is inevitable], that the divide between matter and spirit [to borrow terminology from the book] can't be bridged in society until its bridged within oneself. And the core driving force that Braschi proposes as a key to this awakening is a return of romanticism to the world, as seen through how much this riffs on [and actually deconstructs] classic literature while clearly holding deep admiration for it. Giannina's ideal that art is on some level capable of healing individuals and even nations, and the idea that the inherent Poetics driving all experience is just fundamental to the human species no matter how much the ruling apparatuses try to destroy these impulses, all of this is deeply appealing to me as someone who personally needs art to survive. While my own understanding of spirituality has solidified more over the past few years, it was art and especially books that even enabled these realizations in the first place, I would have never gotten where I am now without the ability of "meeting" a writer I will never meet on their wavelength [across time, space, nations, peoples] as is possible through literature, even if it is technically in a limited state, it never really feels as limited as it should feel, which I don't think has ever been better expressed in a book I've read than this one. Yes, it's an abstract form of communication, as in most cases you will never meet the writer. But that even a sheer abstraction of the surrounding reality can teach you as much as this taught me about said reality, through the mind of a single artist living within it, is testament to the mind-bogglingly vast nature of life and existence that is always flowing around me, and that I am part of that flow no matter how physically separate I feel from it. I don't know how exactly but in some sense the stream connecting all of us and everything all the time is accessible through books, which I can't interpret as anything other than reality when a book like this can exist, because this is raw reality as seen by Giannina Braschi, and through hers I see my own reflected, despite us being whole countries and cultures removed from one another.

Over the years I've gone back and forth on the idea of whether art can be actually revolutionary, in so far as actually instigating any "real" change outside its pages, canvas, whatever, but it almost feels like this book singlehandedly dispelled any of my doubts that it can. After all, it is art that has been changing [and saving] my life since the start of this decade, and before it for nearly as long as I lived, even if I was much less conscious of what it could do for me until I got sick. Braschi's is only one vision of change, but the infinite is contained within the personal and the specific, and if this is possible, what does it say about the amassed infinity of potential and possibility in every single person? And through all these big ideas, it is a phenomenal aesthetic work period, immense in scope and scale beyond its slim length, with language virtuosic on every page, and not one iota of it is misplaced among its own grand design, which is high praise for a work this dense. Mostly, though, it is life-affirming art, and as someone with an ill body, that is probably the highest praise I could give anything. I can genuinely say I now know what it feels like to be truly thankful that a book exists, and thankful to Giannina Braschi for writing it. This is a gift, art is a gift from the divine, and I can't be anything less than honored to coexist in the world with those who make and love it.

[Tim Rideout · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Zarathustra: Do you have words? Do your words belong to you?
Giannina: No, my answer is no. I have no property in the dictionary. Words are anonymous like the disenfranchised masses that haven't been weighed - or named - or framed. My words belong to those who don't belong.”
― Giannina Braschi, United States of Banana

An innovative and challenging view of post-9/11 America. Braschi plays with poetic, dramatic and prose forms to observe the impact of 9/11 from her perspective as an alienated and hence disinterested immigrant from Puerto Rico and to propose that the 'Ground Zero' represented by the 9/11 attacks represents an opportunity to build American society anew, avoiding replicating the abusive power structures of the American establishment both at home and abroad.

Braschi deploys many intertextual references (including Hamlet, Life is a Dream, The Wasteland) and the tropes of the Theatre of the Absurd to convey the complexity and scale of the challenge represented by the need to rebuild American, indeed global, society from the bottom up.

Unfortunately the potency of Braschi's critique and her proposed new approach is undermined by her failure to sustain the reader's interest in the second half of the work. The continued onslaught of absurd images and historical and literary characters, initially supports Braschi's message but ultimately begins to distract the reader.

[Transnational · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Los Estados Unidos de Banana vivirán el ocaso absoluto de su imperio. Y Puerto Rico será el primer Estado Libre Asociado incorporado a medias en alcanzar su independencia. Luego vendrá Liberty Island, luego Mississippi Burning, Texas BBQ, Kentucky Fried Chicken, todos ellos, New York Yankees, Jersey Devils, una lista interminable que se querrá separar, divorciarse. Las cosas no irán bien para la república bananera cuando se rompan los grilletes y las cadenas de la democracia y se de rienda suelta a los perros de la guerra. La separación, el divorcio, la desintegración de sujetos que ya nada importan--tan solo verbos--tan solo acción. Los americanos caminarán como pollos decapitados," dice Braschi." Estados Unidos de Banana.

See this video for una entrevista in Spanish about this book.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ58U...

[Talya · Rating 1 out of 5]

read for a class. I understand that Braschi is an avant-garde author and that, as such, I'm not even remotely close to her target audience, but I still think it's worth expressing how much I absolutely hated this. this book was 300 pages of self-indulgent nonsense (and I can't stress the "nonsense" part enough) interspersed with the VERY occasional insightful comment, and those comments did nothing to compensate for the bewilderment, repulsion, and desire to repeatedly hit my head against a wall that I felt throughout my reading experience. this definitely deserves a spot on my imaginary "thank god it's over" shelf. like yeah maybe she's decolonizing the literary form by writing like this but I still think it sucks

[Gulliver's Bad Trip · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm kind of under suspicion for saying this since I'm on the other side of the Wall, you know, not that it even matters to me or makes me envious, which really isn't the case, after all, but I hold in high esteem that this book is probably one of the undervalued masterpieces from the beginning of XXI century. Or I'm just too pleased for a writer intentionaly writing 'bad english'. Or maybe I'm a bad reader. Or, unbelievably, all of the above are correct despite looking wrong.

[Hooper Bring]

“Braschi writes a lyric essay about the "Hierarchy of Inspiration", which features the Duende, Angel, Muse, and Daemon as distinct forces of artistic inspiration. She also published a treatise on the poet-artist about Lorca's treatment of the Duende.”

[norma frances · Rating 4 out of 5]

an atypical, unique, as another reviewer puts it “intellectually thrilling”, insightful. at times stylistically rendering it difficult to follow i must admit, but i can’t wait to sink my teeth into her work

[Tancredi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Print version.

[Emilio López · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fue un vómito (en forma positiva) de historias y personajes literarios y filosóficos. La forma: sorprendente; pero necesitaría varias lecturas para desentrañar el fondo.

[Chris Nagel · Rating 2 out of 5]

The butler did it.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una mierda.

[the real Italian reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

The references to Ancient Greek figures were a lot but her overall plot about Puerto Rican independence was interesting.

[Katie Janson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A scavenger hunt of metaphors!

[ElenaSquareEyes · Rating 1 out of 5]

I listened to United States of Banana on audio and it was a very similar experience to listening to Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex and I’m not sure if reading the physical book would have helped at all because United States of Banana is just weird.

Though I’m not sure the name of the person whose perspective the book started out from I was able to follow the first part of United States of Banana reasonably well. It was about what life was like in America (or the United States of Banana as it’s called throughout the book) for someone from Puerto Rico, and immigrants in general. How they have to know multiple languages and sometimes feel like they don’t belong in either place. It also follows this person as 9/11 happens and they witness the planes going into the Twin Towers. This part was both interesting and hard to listen to as it didn’t shy away from describing what they saw and felt, the panic, fear, confusion, and how then life after 9/11 changed.

It was when United States of Banana turned towards the Statue of Liberty, the prisoner Segismundo and had Hamlet, Zarathustra, and Giannina having philosophical debates and the Statue of Liberty being a living thing that could talk it became so hard to follow. I feel you needed to know the story of Hamlet (I only know the gist of it as it’s not a play I’ve seen/read) and who Zarathustra was (he was an Iranian prophet but I didn’t find that out until I googled the name) to really understand some of the tangents they went on and the people they mentioned.

The way United States of Banana is written and/or narrated means it’s like a stream of consciousness a lot of the time, or just rambling dialogue. When the characters are at Liberty Island it seems like instead of having the usual dialogue tags, it’d be like a play and say a character’s name, followed by what they said. This was difficult to follow as sometimes I wasn’t sure if it was a character saying the name of another character, or they were being introduced before saying their bit.

I think United States of Banana is more of a book about ideas and debates and theoretical situations with fictional character or ancient figures, rather than a book with a solid narrative. There are probably a lot of themes in this book and to begin with I liked what it was saying about immigrant life and how America often shifts the goalposts for people just trying to live their lives. However, in the end United States of Banana is hard to follow and is really weird. It may be a different experience when reading the physical book but overall, I found United States of Banana not a particularly enjoyable experience as it was difficult to retain the information given and follow any semblance of plot.

[Tere · Rating 5 out of 5]

Latinx political philosophy at its best!

[Transnational · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a masterpiece of social criticism about the decline of the American empire and its cruel injustices of blatant racism, sexism, and a host of other "isms." For a fascinating review and a deep dive of Braschi's political philosophy, read "Falling for debt: Giannina Braschi, the Latinx avant-garde, and financial terrorism in the United States of Banana" by John Riofrio who explains how the economic devastation wrought by the 2008 market crash comes to light in "Braschi’s dense, profound novel". He argues that amid Braschi's strategic use of avant-garde techniques, she links post "9/11 fears of terrorism with the daily suffering that stems from a changing, debt-ridden economy to offer a scathing critique of neoliberal economic and social reforms."

https://link.springer.com/article/10....