Publisher Description
An intriguing and hypnotizing work of postmodern fiction from groundbreaking Hispanic-American writer Giannina Braschi, Empire of Dreams chronicles a decade-long love affair with 1980s New York and all its contradictions. The city’s perversions and passions, power and marginality, grandeur and squalor come vibrantly to life in each of the book’s three sections. “Book of Clowns and Buffoons” imagines life in the city as a carnival-style spectacle that ultimately ends in chaos. Inspired by the Puerto Rican Day parade, a bucolic celebration reclaims the city in “Pastoral.” And “The Intimate Diary of Solitude” spoofs the magical realism of Latin American novelists such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez with its tale of aspiring actress-writer Mariquita Samper, who records the days of her increasingly outlandish life in a mystical diary. Wildly imaginative, rich and complex, Empire of Dreams has garnered glowing praise for being “an ‘in-your-face assertion’ of the vitality of Latino culture in the US” (New York Daily News).
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"Definitely between a 4 and a 5. I enjoyed the structure, and I thought it had a lot of interesting things to say about death and its interface with reality/illusion."
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D.A. (4 out of 5 stars)
About Giannina Braschi
Giannina Braschi is a native of Puerto Rico and an influential and versatile writer of poetry, fiction, and essays. She was a tennis champion and fashion model during her youth in San Juan, before moving to Madrid to study with the Spanish poets Carlos Busoño and Claudio Rodriguez. She lived in Paris, Rome, and London before settling in New York, where she has taught at Rutgers University, City University, and Colgate University. She holds a PhD in Golden Age Spanish literature and has written on Cervantes, Garcilaso, Lorca, Machado, Vallejo, and Bécquer. Her cutting-edge work in Spanish, Spanglish, and English has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, el diario, PEN American Center, Ford Foundation, Danforth Scholarship, InterAmericas, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, and Reed Foundation. She currently serves as a literary judge for the PEN Book Awards.
About Adriana Sananes
Adriana Sananes is an award-winning actress and an Earphones Award–winning audiobook narrator. She narrated the documentary Children of Fate, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and nominated for an Academy Award, and has recorded over eighty bestsellers including Loving Che, The Dark Bride, My Sister Frida, The Dirty Girls Social Club, the Grammy-nominated Brown Bear Series by Eric Carle, and the Audie-nominated How the García Girls Lost Their Accent by Julia Álvarez.