sx blog
Our digital space for brief commentary and reflection on cultural, political, and intellectual events. We feature supplementary materials that enhance the content of our multiple platforms.
Upcoming Caribbean Modernism Symposium
Upcoming Caribbean Modernism Symposium
We are excited for our inaugural Caribbean Modernism symposium to take place November 9-11 in collaboration with the Research Center for Material Culture! Days 1 and 2 will be hosted at Framer Framed and then at the Wereldmuseum Amsterdam on day 3.
The event is open to the public. You can get tickets here.
Boat People: A Conversation
Boat People: A Conversation
The bilingual edition of Boat People (Cardboard House Press, 2021), written by Mayra Santos-Febres and translated by Vanessa Pérez-Rosario has received Honorable Mention for best bilingual poetry book in the International Latino Book Award 2023 competition. To celebrate this recognition the AfroLatin@ Forum in conjunction with Small Axe and others is hosting an event with the author and the translator.
Here's the registration link: https://www.afrolatinoforum.org/events/boat-people-a-conversation
Praise for Boat People
The ocean in Boat People is haunted and the book is the heartbreaking journey from sea to horizon. Melancholy and songlike, Santos-Febres documents the nameless, the chum: bodies set adrift by commerce. Like M. NourBese Philips’s Zong!, this phenomenal translation in which I become “a drop of fish sweat,” my body dancing to the poetry’s music but also lamenting the violences that underlie it.
—Carmen Giménez Smith, author of Be Recorder and Milk and Filth
Mayra Santos-Febres is one of our most powerful writers, and Boat People has long been a part of the poetic counter-tradition that shaped generations of Puerto Rican poets. Thanks to Vanessa Pérez-Rosario, English-language readers are now plunged into the depths of a text that, to echo Patrick Chamoiseau, is composed of "that strange conference of poets and great beings," lost at sea, tossed on shores, or caught in a world without return address or safe passage. Written like a border drawn on water, this oceanic book is both a source of life and a record of death. It remains as devastatingly urgent as the day it was written.
—Raquel Salas Rivera, author of lo terciario and while they sleep (under the bed is another country)
Other Reviews
Boat People by Mayra Santos-Febres reviewed by Meaghan Coogan in Asymptote:
“Boat People endeavors to document the undocumented, the invisibilized, and the silenced who are lost to the sea.”
“Santos-Febres’s Boat People documents the Black lives lost in the attempt to chase the mirage of the American Dream, in order to combat the silence and absence of archival records and humanizing discourse surrounding Black death, which is often reduced to numbers in a newspaper article or spectacularized violence in a photograph.”
Boat People by Mayra Santos-Febres reviewed by Katherine Hedeen in Modern Poetry in Translation:
“Thanks to translator Vanessa Pérez-Rosario and the tireless work of independent publisher of poetry in translation Cardboard House Press, U.S. readers are asked to question how borders are defined; to go beyond the anti-immigrant rhetoric of wall-building; to look east rather than south; to think of the sea.”
Boat People by Mayra Santos-Febres reviewed by Shash Trevett in The Times Literary Supplement:
“Brilliantly translated into English for the first time by Vanessa Pérez-Rosario, the book-length poem possesses a lyrical intensity enfolding centuries of desperate water crossings. It is a migration elegy and an oceanic hymn that mimics the creative and destructive power of the sea.”
Boat People by Mayra Santos-Febres reviewed by Greg Bem in Exacting Clam:
“The fatalism is amplified by a swollen language of stories of unacknowledgment and brutal survival: “identity unquestioned / and one more to the sea / a watery wilderness” (35). The poet calls forth the fragmentation of our discourse, at large, around the subject of migration along the margins, of consideration of refugees.”
Boat People by Mayra Santos-Febres reviewed by Zack Anderson in Harvard Review:
“Boat People joins a lineage of poignant works exploring the drift between borders and the constructedness of citizenship, ranging from the documentary (Heimrad Bäcker’s Seascape) to the epic (Caroline Bergvall’s Drift) to the elegiac (Asiya Wadud’s Syncope). Like these other works, Boat People is so impactful because its capaciousness and ambiguity only sharpens the reader’s sense of devastation.”
Boat People by Mayra Santos-Febres reviewed by Honora Spicer in World Literature Today:
“Gnashing and disassembling flesh and language at once, “la fauce azul / alafau sea sul,” Pérez-Rosario’s translation sustains this simultaneity and breakdown: “like the yawl that tossed your excess weight / into the blue maw / intothe bluem aw.” This spacing, repetition, reordering of proximity gestures toward bodies opening out in multiple ways, becoming un-numberable, un-indexical, un-categorizable.”
“The Opacity of Language, the Empathy of Translation,”Aitor Bouso Gavín on Boat People in Hopscotch:
“As Pérez-Rosario brilliantly puts it, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, the migrant crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border and the Atlantic, and the ecological and debt crisis in Puerto Rico, these poems have ‘the power to move readers in ways that statistics cannot.’”
Boat People by Mayra Santos Febres reviewed by Zoe Contros Kearl in Kenyon Review:
“Mayra Santos-Febres’s collection Boat People, translated by Vanessa Pérez-Rosario, addresses the oft-undiscussed topic of undocumented migration in the Caribbean. In a numbered series of poems that are sparse and beautiful and rending, both in form and in content, Santos-Febres creates devastating narratives time and again.”
Small Axe 71 is now available!
Small Axe 71 is now available!
This issue features essays by Alexandra Perisic, Dashiell Moore, and David Scott. The special section on Maureen Warner-Lewis includes the work of Warner-Lewis herself, Velma Pollard, Faith Smith, Rhonda Cobham-Sander, as well as Victoria Collis-Buthelezi. The annual Keywords in Caribbean Studies section examines the terms Cimarrón, Marron, Maroon with contributions by Ileana Rodríquez-Silva, SJ Zhang, Johnhenry Gonzalez, Corinna Campbell, and Tolin Alexander. This issue's visual essay and cover image showcase the work of Nadia Huggins. The book discussion engages Andil Gosine's Nature's Wild, with essays by Kedon Willis, Rajiv Mohabir, Michelle Rowley, and Andil Gosine in response.
Take a look at the table of contents here.
Symposium on Otto and Hermina Huiswoud: Modern Black Diasporic Radicals
Symposium on Otto and Hermina Huiswoud: Modern Black Diasporic Radicals
We are excited to announce the 2 day symposium on Otto and Hermina Huiswoud: Modern Black Diasporic Radicals, organized in collaboration with theInternational Institute of Social History, the Tropenmuseum, and The Black Archives.
sx salon 43 available now!
sx salon 43 available now!
The discussion section of sx salon 43, a general issue, opens with Matthew Smith’s poignant and
incisive essay on grief, followed by Rojo Robles’s tracing of the “poetic decolonization” enacted in
the 2015 anthology Sucede que yo soy América (It Occurs to Me That I Am America). Next we present
Essah Cozett Díaz’s interview with Puerto Rican novelist and educator Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa in
which the two discuss mothering, spirituality, creativity, and grappling with painful histories. Then
Amandla Thomas-Johnson offers a thoughtful discussion of the impact of the Black British
publication Race Today, which ran from 1974 to 1988. Finally, Kelly Baker Josephs interviews the
musician, poet, and novelist Anthony Joseph about his 2022 collection Sonnets for Albert, winner of
the 2022 T. S. Eliot Prize and the 2023 OCM Bocas Prize for Poetry. In our reviews section, Andre
Bagoo reviews Kevin Jared Hosein’s recent novel Hungry Ghosts; Elaine Savory, Suzanne Scafe, and
Lindsay Griffiths Brown review recent monographs by Sue Thomas, Denise Noble, and Lorgia
García Peña, respectively. Our creative section offers new poems by Marianela Medrano and
Keisha-Gaye Anderson and short fiction from Amanda Haynes.
Boston Review Publishes David Scott's Essay on C.L.R. James
Boston Review Publishes David Scott's Essay on C.L.R. James
In anticipation of a new edition of The Black Jacobins by C.L.R. James, check out this essay by David Scott on “C.L.R. James’s Radical Vision of Common Humanity” published by Boston Review.
Small Axe 70 is now available!
Small Axe 70 is now available!
This issue includes essays by Najnin Islam, Sasha Ann Panaram and Tohru Nakamura. Wayne Modest and Susan Legêne guest-edit the special section entitled "Anton de Kom and the Caribbean Intellectual Tradition" -- with contributions by Mitchell Esajas, Markus Balkenhol, Olivia Gomes da Cunha, Karwan Fatah-Black and Guno Jones. This issue's visual essay and cover image feature IMPRINT by Shannon Alonzo. The book discussion engages Reimagining Liberation: How Black Women Transformed Citizenship in the French Empire by Annette K. Joseph-Gabriel with essays by Grace Sanders Johnson, Shanna Jean-Baptiste, and Tobias Warner.
Take a look at the table of contents: http://smallaxe.net/sx/issues/70
New Titles from Editora Educación Emergente (EEE): Lila, cimarrona de les arbumanes
New Titles from Editora Educación Emergente (EEE): Lila, cimarrona de les arbumanes
Editora Educación Emergente (EEE), a small-scale independent publisher, established in 2009 in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, is proud to announce the release of its most recent titles to the Caribbean’s ample and diverse public.
To our Otra escuela series we have also added Lila, cimarrona de les arbumanes, by Beatriz Llenín Figueroa and with illustrations by Noa Dimedetti. This is a story for late childhood, early adolescence, or any age of innocence. Lila, who has chosen her own name, contemplates her surroundings’ wonders and delights herself eating boiled breadfruit and learning about the Caribbean region. Meanwhile, she envelops us in her wonder and passion for study, diversity, nature, art, and imagination. Supported by her diverse family –the wonderful Grandma Bo and her two moms, who are present, even if they’re gone–, Lila manages to change everything.
To explore our complete catalogue of over seventy titles, please visit: portal.editoraemergente.com To purchase our books, please visit us online: editoraemergente.com Or come to Puerto Rico, where you can find our titles in local bookstores.
Nuevos títulos de Editora Educación Emergente (EEE):
Lila, cimarrona de les arbumanes
Editora Educación Emergente (EEE), proyecto editorial independiente de pequeña escala, fundado en 2009 y con base en Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, presenta al amplio y diverso público caribeño sus seis títulos más recientes.
A la serie Otra escuela también se añade Lila, cimarrona de les arbumanes, de Beatriz Llenín Figueroa y con ilustraciones de Noa Dimedetti. Este libro es un relato para la niñez tardía, la temprana adolescencia o cualquier edad de la inocencia. Lila, que ha escogido su propio nombre, contempla las maravillas de su entorno y se deleita comiendo pana hervida y aprendiendo sobre la región caribeña. Mientras, nos envuelve en su asombro y pasión por el estudio, la diversidad, la naturaleza, el arte y la imaginación. Apoyada por su familia diversa –la maravillosa abuela Bo y sus dos mamás, quienes están, aunque se hayan ido–, Lila logra cambiarlo todo.
Para explorar nuestro catálogo completo, con más de sesenta títulos publicados hasta la fecha, visita: portal.editoraemergente.com Para adquirir nuestros libros, visita las librerías locales puertorriqueñas o nuestra tienda en línea en: editoraemergente.com
Nouveaux titres d’Editora Educación Emergente (EEE) / Éditrice Éducation Émergente (EEE):
Lila, cimarrona de les arbumanes
Editora Educación Emergente (EEE), projet d’édition indépendant à petite échelle, fondé en 2009 et basé à Cabo Rojo, Porto Rico, présente ses six titres les plus récents à l’ample et divers public caribéen.
Lila, cimarrona de les arbumanes ( Lila, marronne des arbumanes ) , de Beatriz Llenín Figueroa, avec des illustrations de Noa Dimedetti, s'ajoute également à la série Otra escuela (Une autre école ). Ce livre est un conte pour la fin de l'enfance, le début de l'adolescence ou n'importe quel âge d'innocence. Lila, qui a choisi son propre nom, contemple les merveilles de son environnement et se régale à manger du fruit à pain bouilli et à découvrir la région des Caraïbes. En attendant, elle nous enveloppe dans son émerveillement et sa passion pour l'étude, la diversité, la nature, l'art et l'imagination. Soutenue par sa famille diversifiée – la merveilleuse grand-mère Bo et ses deux mamans, qui sont là même si elles sont parties – Lila parvient à tout changer.
Pour explorer notre catalogue complet, avec plus de soixante titres publiés à ce jour, visitez : portal.editoraemergente.com Pour acheter nos livres, visitez les librairies portoricaines locales ou notre boutique en ligne à : editoraemergente.com
New Titles from Editora Educación Emergente (EEE): Crudo 69: piezas selectas de un año de escritura salvaje
New Titles from Editora Educación Emergente (EEE): Crudo 69: piezas selectas de un año de escritura salvaje
Editora Educación Emergente (EEE), a small-scale independent publisher, established in 2009 in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, is proud to announce the release of its most recent titles to the Caribbean’s ample and diverse public.
Crudo 69: piezas selectas de un año de escritura salvaje by Kisha Tikina Burgos Sierra was published as part of our Otra escena series. This book unabashedly continues the author’s craft of writing live arts pieces from a dual perspective: our pained and courageous Puerto Rico, and the femme and feminized bodies in their multiform experiences. Favored by her continuous work as actress, producer, and director of theatrical and cinematographic pieces, Burgos Sierra gifts us pieces and words already conceived for translation onto the live body on stage or behind the camera, and not merely to be savored through the literary reading usually associated with conventional drama. Thus, the experimentation that characterizes this collection results not only from its plots and contents, which oscillate between the visceral and the symbolic, flesh and abstraction, lived and longed-for experiences, but it is also verified in the sharp stage directions and in the concentrated, accelerating forms of these brief pieces. As the author explains with other words in her prologue, the selected texts constitute the alchemical precipitate of a moment of deep pain and creation that she, inspired by the African American dramatist Suzan-Lori Parks’s equivalent exercise, accompanied with daily writing over an entire year.
Nuevos títulos de Editora Educación Emergente (EEE):
Crudo 69: piezas selectas de un año de escritura salvaje
Editora Educación Emergente (EEE), proyecto editorial independiente de pequeña escala, fundado en 2009 y con base en Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, presenta al amplio y diverso público caribeño sus seis títulos más recientes.
Crudo 69: piezas selectas de un año de escritura salvaje de Kisha Tikina Burgos Sierra se añade a nuestra serie Otra escena. Este libro continúa con arrojo el oficio de escribir piezas de artes vivas desde un anclaje dual: nuestro Puerto Rico adolorido y aguerrido, y las cuerpas femme y feminizadas en sus multiformes experiencias. Favorecida por su continua labor como actriz, productora y directora de piezas teatrales y cinematográficas, Burgos Sierra nos ofrece piezas y palabras concebidas de antemano para traducirse en el cuerpo vivo en escena o tras la cámara, y no meramente para degustarse por medio de la lectura literaria que asociamos con el drama convencional. La experimentación que caracteriza esta colección, por tanto, no es sólo el resultado de sus tramas y contenidos, que oscilan entre lo visceral y lo simbólico, entre la carne y la abstracción, entre lo vivido y lo ansiado, sino que también se constata en las filosas acotaciones y en la forma concentrada, galopante, de estas piezas breves. Como la autora explica con otras palabras en su prólogo, los textos seleccionados constituyen el precipitado alquímico de un agujero propio de dolor y creación que acompañó con escritura diaria a lo largo de un año, inspirada por el equivalente ejercicio de la dramaturga afroestadounidense Suzan-Lori Parks.
Nouveaux titres d’Editora Educación Emergente (EEE) / Éditrice Éducation Émergente (EEE):
Crudo 69: piezas selectas de un año de escritura salvaje
Editora Educación Emergente (EEE), projet d’édition indépendant à petite échelle, fondé en 2009 et basé à Cabo Rojo, Porto Rico, présente ses six titres les plus récents à l’ample et divers public caribéen.
Crudo 69: piezas selectas de un año de escritura salvaje ( Brut 69 : pièces choisies d’une année d’écriture sauvage ) de Kisha Tikina Burgos Sierra s’ajoute à notre série Otra escena ( Una autre scène ). Ce livre poursuit avec audace l'art d'écrire des œuvres d'art vivant à partir d'un double ancrage : notre Porto Rico douloureux et endurci au combat, et les corps féminins et féminisés dans leurs expériences multiformes. Favorisée par son travail continu d'actrice, productrice et metteuse en scène de pièces théâtrales et cinématographiques, Burgos nous offre des pièces et des mots conçus à l'avance pour être traduits dans le corps vivant sur scène ou derrière la caméra, et pas seulement pour être savourés à travers la lecture littéraire, que nous associons au drame conventionnel. L'expérimentation qui caractérise cette collection n'est donc pas seulement le résultat de ses intrigues et de ses contenus, qui oscillent entre le viscéral et le symbolique, entre la chair et l'abstraction, entre le vécu et le désiré, mais se confirme aussi dans les vives dimensions et dans la forme concentrée et galopante de ces courtes pièces. Comme l'explique en d'autres termes l'auteure dans son prologue, les textes choisis constituent le précipité alchimique de son propre trou de douleur et de création qu'elle a accompagné d'une écriture quotidienne pendant un an, inspirée de l'exercice équivalent de la dramaturge afro-américaine Suzan-Lori Parcs.
New Titles from Editora Educación Emergente (EEE): El otro camino: la historia de un pequeño ñu
New Titles from Editora Educación Emergente (EEE): El otro camino: la historia de un pequeño ñu
Editora Educación Emergente (EEE), a small-scale independent publisher, established in 2009 in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, is proud to announce the release of its most recent titles to the Caribbean’s ample and diverse public.
Our Otra escuela series is amplified with the children’s story El otro camino: la historia de un pequeño ñu by Ileana Contreras Castro and illustrated by Álvaro Borrasé. Werevu, a small and intelligent gnu, attentively observes the behavior of adults and dares to question some of their irreflexive habits. When he goes unheard, Werevu decides to change and do something different from his pack. Full of courage and doubts, the path he takes through the African savannah is, really, that of living consciously. This takes him to the encounter with a constellation of diverse animals whose common characteristic is choosing freedom as the most precious good. Having literature with critical ideas without losing the writing’s craft and beauty, as is the case in this book, is a welcome fact, and one that offers its readers the possibility of asking themselves whether they really must graze in the eternal fields of custom. This is a book only for big people, regardless of their age.
Nuevos títulos de Editora Educación Emergente (EEE): El otro camino: la historia de un pequeño ñu
Editora Educación Emergente (EEE), proyecto editorial independiente de pequeña escala, fundado en 2009 y con base en Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, presenta al amplio y diverso público caribeño sus seis títulos más recientes.
La serie Otra escuela se amplía con el relato infantil El otro camino: la historia de un pequeño ñu de Ileana Contreras Castro e ilustrado por Álvaro Borrasé. Werevu, un ñu pequeño e inteligente, observa muy atento lo que hacen los adultos y se atreve a cuestionar algunos de sus hábitos irreflexivos. Al no ser escuchado decide dar un giro y hacer algo diferente a su manada. Lleno de valentía y dudas, el camino que toma por la sabana africana es en realidad el de vivir de forma consciente, y éste lo lleva al encuentro con una constelación de animales diversos, cuyo rasgo común es la elección por la libertad como el bien más preciado. Es un acierto tener literatura con ideas críticas como las aparecidas en este libro que, sin perder la belleza de su escritura, ofrece a sus lectores la posibilidad de preguntarse si de verdad hay que pastar en los eternos prados de la costumbre. Éste es un cuento sólo para gente grande, sin importar su edad.
Nouveaux titres d’Editora Educación Emergente (EEE) / Éditrice Éducation Émergente (EEE): El otro camino: la historia de un pequeño ñu
Editora Educación Emergente (EEE), projet d’édition indépendant à petite échelle, fondé en 2009 et basé à Cabo Rojo, Porto Rico, présente ses six titres les plus récents à l’ample et divers public caribéen.
La série Otra escuela (Une autre école) se prolonge avec le conte pour enfants El otro camino: la historia de un pequeño ñu ( L'autre sens : l'histoire d'un petit gnou ) d'Ileana Contreras Castro et illustré par Álvaro Borrasé. Werevu, un petit gnou intelligent, observe attentivement ce que font les adultes et ose remettre en question certaines de leurs habitudes irréfléchies. N'étant pas écouté, il décide de faire demi-tour et de faire quelque chose de différent pour sa meute. Plein de courage et de doutes, le chemin qu'il emprunte à travers la savane africaine est en réalité vécu consciemment, et cela l'amène à rencontrer une constellation d'animaux divers, dont le trait commun est le choix de la liberté comme bien le plus valorisé. C'est une réussite d'avoir une littérature aux idées critiques comme celles qui apparaissent dans ce livre qui, sans perdre la beauté de son écriture, offre à ses lecteurs la possibilité de se demander s'ils doivent vraiment paître dans les prés éternels de la coutume. C'est une histoire réservée aux grandes personnes, quel que soit leur âge, qui invite à la conviction que le « grand chemin » est celui qui nous guide vers le cœur même d'une vie solidaire et authentique.