Overview

A study of the family in contemporary Puerto Rican fiction.   Colonial narratives described Puerto Rico as a familial plantation governed by white men and served by Black women, but Puerto Rican women writing today are changing the story. This book surveys diasporic fiction written by Afro-Puerto Rican women whose historical storytelling reimagines the island’s collective family around particular active women—survivors, creators, and activists. John T. Maddox IV argues that these stories—by such writers as Mayra Santos-Febres, Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa, Arroyo Pizarro, and Yvonne Denis-Rosario—reveal imaginations committed to both the liberative and traumatic experiences of a new “fractal family.” Through close readings and interviews with the authors discussed, this book opens the door to a more fruitful conversation between the diaspora, homeland, and memory.

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9781786839107

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"'For decades, Afro-Puerto Rican writers have been waiting for critical readings of our literary work that take into consideration our self-definition of categories informing our novels, poems, essays, chronicles and interdisciplinary manifestation of our work ... The present study gives me hope, perhaps to repair decades of colonised reading of our production, and create the route for inclusion in the system of literary decolonial studies that gives the long awaited justices we claim as knowledge producers.'-- ""Mayra Santos-Febres, author and cultural activist"" ""Fractal Families is a necessary, timely intervention. The author offers urgent readings of Afro-Puerto Rican women's literature, engaging groundbreaking recent works by Mayra Santos-Febres, Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro, Yvonne Dennis-Rosario, and Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa. This book will be required reading for anyone interested in contemporary Puerto Rican, Caribbean, and Latin American literature and culture.""-- ""Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes, Professor of Spanish, American Culture, and Women's and Gender Studies, University of Michigan"""

'For decades, Afro-Puerto Rican writers have been waiting for critical readings of our literary work that take into consideration our self-definition of categories informing our novels, poems, essays, chronicles and interdisciplinary manifestation of our work ... The present study gives me hope, perhaps to repair decades of colonised reading of our production, and create the route for inclusion in the system of literary decolonial studies that gives the long awaited justices we claim as knowledge producers.'-- ""Mayra Santos-Febres, author and cultural activist"" ""Fractal Families is a necessary, timely intervention. The author offers urgent readings of Afro-Puerto Rican women's literature, engaging groundbreaking recent works by Mayra Santos-Febres, Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro, Yvonne Dennis-Rosario, and Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa. This book will be required reading for anyone interested in contemporary Puerto Rican, Caribbean, and Latin American literature and culture.""-- ""Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes, Professor of Spanish, American Culture, and Women's and Gender Studies, University of Michigan""

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This book will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as scholars in Puerto Rican studies and related fields.

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