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City of God
" City of God is an unsparing account of devastation and empowerment in the age of AIDS. From the body’s first mysterious eroticism to its final humiliation and pain, Gil Cuadros gives voice to both the beauty and sorrow of our common fate. His writing cuts like a double-edged sword—at times artful and sharp, at times unfiltered and raw. This is an awesome and haunting book.”—David Trinidad “The sensual, the expressive, the daring, the transformed become the matryrs of every era, every family. Their memoirs, heroics are our most devastating works of art. Gil Cuadros’s story ‘Unprotected’ is a classic of AIDS fiction and deserves a place of honor in the mosaic of American writing.”—Sarah Schulman “In a voice poised between plainspokenness and urgency, Gil Cuadros writes about the remnants of love in a devastated world. The poems and stories in City of God are as dire as they are beautiful, and sharp as a blow to the body.”—Bernard Cooper “I accuse Gil Cuadros of literary seduction in the nth degree … He makes me read on when I want to cry … I do not want to look at his words, and yet I cannot take my eyes away. His images sooth, burn, inspire. I accuse Gil Cuadros of language abuse—his stroke of silk, his pen a bludgeon. I accuse him of heart-bashing.”—Wanda Coleman
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
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About the author
Gil Cuadros
3 books8 followersBorn Gilbert Daniel Cuadros in Los Angeles, CA in 1962, Gil Cuadros studied at East L.A. College and Pasadena Community College. His first literary influences were Genet's Quarelle and Our Lady of the Flowers, and later Tennessee Williams and William S. Boroughs.
"Gil Cuadros published stories and poems in Indivisible, High Risk 2, and Blood Whispers. His work is also on the compact disc, Verdict and the Violence: Poet's Response to the LA Uprising. He was awarded the 1991 Brody Literature Fellowship, and was one of the first recipients of the PEN Center USA/West grant to writers with HIV. He lived in Los Angeles until his death in 1996 at the age of 34.
In his short life, Cuadros published one book, City of God (City Lights Books, 1994), which is a collection of short stories and poems. It is a deeply affecting examination of ethnicity, sexuality and the ruthlessness of AIDS in 1990s California"
- La Bloga.blogspot.com
"Gil Cuadros published stories and poems in Indivisible, High Risk 2, and Blood Whispers. His work is also on the compact disc, Verdict and the Violence: Poet's Response to the LA Uprising. He was awarded the 1991 Brody Literature Fellowship, and was one of the first recipients of the PEN Center USA/West grant to writers with HIV. He lived in Los Angeles until his death in 1996 at the age of 34.
In his short life, Cuadros published one book, City of God (City Lights Books, 1994), which is a collection of short stories and poems. It is a deeply affecting examination of ethnicity, sexuality and the ruthlessness of AIDS in 1990s California"
- La Bloga.blogspot.com
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
December 17, 2025
His only book-length work before he died of AIDs complications, City of God is a profound meditation on chicano identity, queerness, and nearly a decade of living with AIDs.
The first half of this book are short stories, of a somewhat autofictional variety, following young gay chicanos and their dynamics with their families and white lovers. The second half is a series of poems, with similar themes that culminate in two longer poems “The Quilt Series” about his partner’s death and “Conquering Immortality” about his own.
I read this in companionship with Let the Record Show by Sarah Schulman, which was so beneficial. It really grounds the discussions of medications, discrimination, and misinformation of AIDs epidemic.
The first half of this book are short stories, of a somewhat autofictional variety, following young gay chicanos and their dynamics with their families and white lovers. The second half is a series of poems, with similar themes that culminate in two longer poems “The Quilt Series” about his partner’s death and “Conquering Immortality” about his own.
I read this in companionship with Let the Record Show by Sarah Schulman, which was so beneficial. It really grounds the discussions of medications, discrimination, and misinformation of AIDs epidemic.
November 17, 2021
Gil Cuadros' posthumously published collection of stories and poems, City of God is a poignant reflection of growing up during and living through the AIDS crisis.
The first portion of the book consists of a collection of stories that touch on issues of growing up queer, dealing with abusive and alcoholic family, finding solace in family, and the mounting loss that came with surviving the AIDS crisis. The second portion includes poems that reflect a person struggling to understand his own survival despite being HIV-positive and confronting the near constant loss of lovers and friends. In each portion, the intersection of Cuadros' sexuality as a gay man and race as a Latino man are on full display; an intersection that shapes Cuadros' own experience with the virus.
City of God represents the remnants of what Cuadros left us before he finally succumbed to the virus in 1996. Each story, each poem in this book forces his readers to grapple with this stunningly dark time in our collective history. City of God is a reflective letter to us all: read it and understand why.
The first portion of the book consists of a collection of stories that touch on issues of growing up queer, dealing with abusive and alcoholic family, finding solace in family, and the mounting loss that came with surviving the AIDS crisis. The second portion includes poems that reflect a person struggling to understand his own survival despite being HIV-positive and confronting the near constant loss of lovers and friends. In each portion, the intersection of Cuadros' sexuality as a gay man and race as a Latino man are on full display; an intersection that shapes Cuadros' own experience with the virus.
City of God represents the remnants of what Cuadros left us before he finally succumbed to the virus in 1996. Each story, each poem in this book forces his readers to grapple with this stunningly dark time in our collective history. City of God is a reflective letter to us all: read it and understand why.
November 15, 2024
— "In the center I write "I am loved," and on each branch I give an example: because I am a creation of God, because I have a loving family, because I've created loving relationships, and so on. It doesn't matter if it's not true, as long as I believe it is."
— "I had to hide everything. Like the gold wedding band that is on a chain my parents had given me. The chain has a cross on it, too. I had promised my parents to wear the cross all the time. They didn't know I wore it with John's ring. To them it would seem immoral; John got me sick."
— "It used to make me sick, the thought of my family, but now I see it as a legacy that I will not understand till much later."
— "I had to hide everything. Like the gold wedding band that is on a chain my parents had given me. The chain has a cross on it, too. I had promised my parents to wear the cross all the time. They didn't know I wore it with John's ring. To them it would seem immoral; John got me sick."
— "It used to make me sick, the thought of my family, but now I see it as a legacy that I will not understand till much later."
December 2, 2019
Recently, two of my favorite writers, Luis Alfaro and Olga Garcia, performed pieces from this book at an event honoring Gil Cuadros. I couldn't make it, so instead I went looking for City of God in the piles of unread books on my shelves. My only regret is that I didn't read this collection of short stories and poems sooner. These are beautiful and devastating stories of being Gay, of being brown, and having AIDS. Gil Cuadros will break your heart and bring you joy and then force you to face his raw pain without looking away. Gil Cuadros was a true talent and his work truly impactful.
March 26, 2021
Can’t put it down once started
April 17, 2022
A MASTERPIECE OF GAY AND CHICANO LITERATURE
I devoured City of God. Gil Cuadros’s stories and poems gave me just enough to make me want more—a whole lot more. Cuadros, who was lost to AIDS in 1996, writes so breathtakingly from his heart that I had to stop for a moment between each story and poem and collect myself.
Cuadros’s descriptive powers are amazing, particularly in “Indulgences,” the first story in City of God. The young narrator and his family drive to a small town to attend his grandfather’s funeral. Upon arrival, he is immediately accosted by his aunt: “Evelyn wore a flimsy dress, a brownish print the same color as the house. Her teeth were stained, and when she smiled her long dog teeth poked out. Hair hung down her back like dry weeds.” The aunt continuously makes suggestive comments to the young boy and won’t keep her hands off him. On the drive back home after the funeral, the narrator says: “Lit by my father’s high beams . . . I watched as we passed a scarecrow off the road, dry weeds for hair, a flimsy brown dress, a stake skewered up through the body, arms stretched out as if ready to embrace.” Do I detect magical realism here?
My favorite story, “Reynaldo,” does contain magical realism. This story absolutely enthralls me. Using the devices of an old diary and a sad but friendly ghost, Cuadros entraps the reader in an intriguing web with the artful way in which he weaves the three threads of the story. The surprising confession of the grandmother provides a perfect resolution to the story: “I had always known of your special friendship with my husband . . . we’ve named our grandson Reynaldo, after you.” Material for a novel is encapsulated in a story of only twenty-two pages, but the story seems satisfyingly complete. Why hasn’t this story been widely anthologized?
As mentioned above, a grandmother is a pivotal character in “Reynaldo.” Grandmothers are minor characters in two other stories in City of God. What would we gay men do without our grandmothers? From my reading, I’ve found that grandmothers are such frequent and significant characters in gay literature to warrant a dissertation on the topic.
Every gay man struggles with an issue that the narrator in “Indulgences” describes so forcefully: “I stood outside, wondered if my family would ever turn on me, where would I go, who would I love.” Continuing this theme, Cuadros relates a young man’s first explorations of love in the tender poem, “To the First Time.” The narrator goes to a gay bar in Los Angeles on Halloween: “I was still a virgin watching / nervous-eyed, the bare-chested men act out Pan.” He goes home with an older man: “It was easy to hand over innocence, / all it took was him asking.” The man literally protects the narrator from his belief that “love could never be harmful.”
“The Quilt Series” consists of six wrenching poems about the death of the poet’s lover from AIDS. “DOA,” the sixth, and final, poem in the series concludes: “I shivered in our bed, / his pillow between my legs, / his gold ring pulse / at the bottom of a drawer. / It died when I got up to touch it.”
I’ve only mentioned two of the nine stories and two of the twelve poems included in City of God. The other seven stories and ten poems are their equals. City of God is a masterpiece of gay and Chicano literature.
I devoured City of God. Gil Cuadros’s stories and poems gave me just enough to make me want more—a whole lot more. Cuadros, who was lost to AIDS in 1996, writes so breathtakingly from his heart that I had to stop for a moment between each story and poem and collect myself.
Cuadros’s descriptive powers are amazing, particularly in “Indulgences,” the first story in City of God. The young narrator and his family drive to a small town to attend his grandfather’s funeral. Upon arrival, he is immediately accosted by his aunt: “Evelyn wore a flimsy dress, a brownish print the same color as the house. Her teeth were stained, and when she smiled her long dog teeth poked out. Hair hung down her back like dry weeds.” The aunt continuously makes suggestive comments to the young boy and won’t keep her hands off him. On the drive back home after the funeral, the narrator says: “Lit by my father’s high beams . . . I watched as we passed a scarecrow off the road, dry weeds for hair, a flimsy brown dress, a stake skewered up through the body, arms stretched out as if ready to embrace.” Do I detect magical realism here?
My favorite story, “Reynaldo,” does contain magical realism. This story absolutely enthralls me. Using the devices of an old diary and a sad but friendly ghost, Cuadros entraps the reader in an intriguing web with the artful way in which he weaves the three threads of the story. The surprising confession of the grandmother provides a perfect resolution to the story: “I had always known of your special friendship with my husband . . . we’ve named our grandson Reynaldo, after you.” Material for a novel is encapsulated in a story of only twenty-two pages, but the story seems satisfyingly complete. Why hasn’t this story been widely anthologized?
As mentioned above, a grandmother is a pivotal character in “Reynaldo.” Grandmothers are minor characters in two other stories in City of God. What would we gay men do without our grandmothers? From my reading, I’ve found that grandmothers are such frequent and significant characters in gay literature to warrant a dissertation on the topic.
Every gay man struggles with an issue that the narrator in “Indulgences” describes so forcefully: “I stood outside, wondered if my family would ever turn on me, where would I go, who would I love.” Continuing this theme, Cuadros relates a young man’s first explorations of love in the tender poem, “To the First Time.” The narrator goes to a gay bar in Los Angeles on Halloween: “I was still a virgin watching / nervous-eyed, the bare-chested men act out Pan.” He goes home with an older man: “It was easy to hand over innocence, / all it took was him asking.” The man literally protects the narrator from his belief that “love could never be harmful.”
“The Quilt Series” consists of six wrenching poems about the death of the poet’s lover from AIDS. “DOA,” the sixth, and final, poem in the series concludes: “I shivered in our bed, / his pillow between my legs, / his gold ring pulse / at the bottom of a drawer. / It died when I got up to touch it.”
I’ve only mentioned two of the nine stories and two of the twelve poems included in City of God. The other seven stories and ten poems are their equals. City of God is a masterpiece of gay and Chicano literature.
April 21, 2025
CW That I Found: Abondonment, alcohol, chronic illness, death, grief, homophobia, medical content, medical trauma, physical abuse, racial slurs, racism, self harm, sexual content, terminal illness, vomit
Another great collection. My Aztlan: White Place particularly stuck with me. Abuse leading to a warped perspective of love and lust in the future is always a heartbreaking yet intriguing element to me. Despite not describing any particular pleasant encounters with his lover and their friends, describing the racist ways he would be referred to during sex, he clearly longs for them now that they are gone.
Another great collection. My Aztlan: White Place particularly stuck with me. Abuse leading to a warped perspective of love and lust in the future is always a heartbreaking yet intriguing element to me. Despite not describing any particular pleasant encounters with his lover and their friends, describing the racist ways he would be referred to during sex, he clearly longs for them now that they are gone.
October 18, 2025
Brutal and tender - I've always shied away from HIV classics, but really glad this reading challenge pushed me to pick up this one. Reynaldo is my favorite story in this work, and the one that stands out to me, but I found myself responding to quite a lot in here, and it's not often I want to keep going in a short story collection.
June 9, 2024
Three of the stories here -- "Baptism," "Sight, and especially "Letting Go" --made me want to run out into the street and shout to everyone that they must read them. But instead of doing that, inspired by this dead man's gifts, I am staying home and writing my own.
May 22, 2025
when i started this book i wasn’t super into it idk why, must have been in a bad mood bc i finished the rest of it today and completely changed my mind. the poems towards the end were especially beautiful.
March 22, 2022
“I explained the stuff going on in my head, the same words my folks said when I was young when they were mad at me”
beautiful, heartbreaking prose
I will cherish this
beautiful, heartbreaking prose
I will cherish this
April 1, 2023
I had to read this for class so I wasn’t expecting a whole lot, but this book surprised me in so many ways. So emotional and raw, def recommend for a good cry!
December 10, 2023
One of the best books I’ve read in a long time. As a gay LA native myself, reading this book moved me in so many ways. Gil Cuadros was truly a pioneer and a beacon for gay men then and since. 🙏🏾
April 9, 2024
for school
July 9, 2025
A blend of vignettes and poetry. There is always an urge to present time as something fleeting, at loose ends.
May 22, 2025
"i am protected by myth, a dream of immortality, enfolded in this theater's tomb like darkness" WOOOOOW
April 10, 2016
I like the idea of this book - amassing short stories and poems focused on a single topic, every page very emotionally driven. Some of the stories and poems really sucked me in, others not so much (sadly I feel like this is how a lot of collections are). My main issue was that a lot of the stories blended together and even now I can't keep all of them completely separate. That, and it felt like there was this insurmountable difference between me and all of the narrators that made it difficult to connect. Still, an interesting read that I enjoyed bits and pieces of.
February 4, 2016
I wavered between two and three stars with this one, because though I think some of the pieces in this collection are strong, others simply didn't work for me. What Cuadros does right in this piece however, is bring out the visceral feelings that were clearly present for him when he wrote, illustrating what it must have felt like to know you were dying of a disease that there was no cure for.
Read
January 3, 2013Had to read for class. I only made it through the second story, Reynaldo, and I really liked it but again, I had no desire to continue reading.
February 14, 2016
This collection of short stories and poems, like any other, has its ups and downs. When it's right though, it's really right.
November 12, 2021
read this!!
November 29, 2008
Good. Graphic and (gay) erotic at times.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews