The Dirty Text

by Soleida Ríos, Barbara Jamison (Translation), Olivia Lott (Translation)

Poetry. Fiction. Latinx Studies. Women's Studies. Translated from the Spanish by Barbara Jamison and Olivia Lott. Includes a translator's notes by Olivia Lott and an afterword by Kristin Dykstra. Written in the 1990s in Cuba, THE DIRTY TEXT is a book of poems, a book of stories and, most vividly, a book of dreams. As poet Rosa Alcalá writes, Ríos' writings are "indescribable manifestations of a poetics unfastened to mode, genre, or category." In this book, human eyes appear beneath other human eyes, snakes materialize with three heads, and the bodies of loved ones duplicate, disintegrate or speak to ghosts and Gods. It is a book about the possibilities of language and literature to articulate our relationship to the communities we occupy and the communities we imagine, a book that disentangles the lines between our conscious lives and our unconscious lives, what we imagine and what we experience. Ríos writes of the island's east and west cities of Havana and Santiago, but she looks off the island as well, to Mexico, to South America, to Europe, at once evoking and defying the broader, international traditions of surrealist and hallucinatory writing.

278 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

read this for school! v unique and cool writing style

[Kam Brooksmoore · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure exactly what I just read, but it was a very visceral experience and Rios is clearly an experienced and influential author. She has an amazing way of using words and creating these dreams in different and confusing (on purpose) ways. I think that my confusion may be cleared up in discussion with my peers, but also this book feels like it is meant to be confusing.

Overall, I didn't hate it, but I also didn't love it.

3/5 stars

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

beautifully disjointed

[Marissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

read for school. i don’t know what happened tbh