Queer Latino Testimonio, Keith Haring, and Juanito Xtravaganza
Hard Tails
Cruz-Malave, Arnaldo
Paperback
$21.46 + $1.99 USPS S/H
$1.07 of your order (5%) will be donated to the school of your choice.
BOOK SUMMARY
In the tradition of the Latin American testimonio, this is the story of Juan Rivera, a.k.a. Juanito Xtravaganza, a Latino runaway youth who ends up homeless in the streets of New York in the late 70s and becomes partner of the internationally famous 1980s
BOOK SYNOPSIS
In the tradition of the Latin American testimonio, this is the story of Juan Rivera, a.k.a. Juanito Xtravaganza, a Latino runaway youth who ends up homeless in the streets of New York in the late 70s and becomes partner of the internationally famous 1980s Pop artist Keith Haring during some of the most frenetically productive years of his brief life, as told to the author and retold by him. A hybrid text--part testimonio, part linguistic and cultural analysis, and part art criticism--this is also a history of New York Latino neighborhoods during this period of devastating disinvestment and gentrification, as well as a personal, heart-felt meditation on the art of listening and the ethical limits of representing queer Latino lives.
AUTHOR BIO
Arnaldo Cruz-Malavé is Associate Professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature, and Associate Director of the Latin American and Latino Studies Institute at Fordham University. He is co-editor of Queer Globalization: Citizenship and the Afterlife of Colonialism.
BOOK REVIEWS
"In various turns, a story of the abject, an urban cultural history, and a literary meditation--Queer Latino Testimonio is a glorious assemblage of voices, images, rhythms, and sensualities of the turbulent last two decades of twentieth century New York City. Cruz-Malavé is a skilled cultural surgeon who elegantly dissects the pathos and potentials of racialized queer lives facing the ravages of disease, poverty, and shame. With grace and compassion, he listens and engages in dialogue. Finally, he offers a stirring portrait of the upheavals, deaths, and hopeful futures of bodies under siege. A marvelous piece of scholarship!"--Martin F. Manalansan IV, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and author of Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora  "Queer Latino Testimonio is a text that like its subjects, Juanito Xtravaganza (Juan Rivera) and the famed pop artist, Keith Haring, demands--and deserves--our undivided attention. It not only details the exciting and often difficult relationship between Keith and Juanito--a relationship punctuated by sex, travel, fame, disease, and yes, despair--but also it chronicles Juanito's amazing life story the development of the rich, multiracial, mixed class cultural scene that inspired and supported Haring's remarkable art. Narrated with sensitivity and style by literary and cultural critic Arnaldo Cruz-Malavé, Queer Latino Testimonio reminds us that the greatest of our cultural icons are never simply isolated geniuses, but instead reflections of the messy, funky, difficult, exasperating and exciting realities of everyday life. In a word, the book you hold in your hands is legendary!"--Robert F. Reid-Pharr, Professor of English, CUNY Graduate School, and author of Once You Go Black: Choice Desire and the Black American Intellectual "Queer Latino Testimonio is an extraordinary book. It's a killer combination of the interview and the scholarly essay genre, and it delivers an incredibly fresh vision of what Cultural Studies can become; how can it cross boundaries between specialized and non-specialized worlds. Cruz-Malavé's wit and intelligence is not only stimulating but enriching. This is good reading whether you are interested in gay culture, in the history of contemporary New York City, or in a thrilling biography of a character that is both real and imagined."--Mayra Santos-Febres, Professor of Literature, University of Puerto Rico "An impassioned, breakdanced pas de deux between a painter and his lover, underscored by another, more meditative one between an ethnographer and his informant, Queer Latino Testimonio is an intricate, lavish choreography of queer ethnicity and ethnic queerness, a trenchant inquiry into the New York of the 1980s, and an alluring, uncompromising tale of tails in the waning years of the age of x-travagance, and the dawn of the age of AIDS."--Rubén RÃos-Avila, Professor of Comparative Literature, University of Puerto Rico, and author of La Raza Cómica
Â
Submit a book reviewFOR RELATED BOOKS
Biography & Autobiography Books :: General Books
Social Science Books :: Gay Studies Books
Social Science Books :: Ethnic Studies Books :: Hispanic American Studies Books
MORE BOOK INFO
ISBN: 1403977488
ISBN(13-digit): 9781403977489
Dewey Decimal: 306.76/62092
Library of Congress: 2007005287
Book Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Language: ENG
No. of Pages: 227
If you like this book, you may also enjoy:
 | |
 | |
 | |
| Fear and Loathing | |
Patton | |
Disturbing the Peace | |
| Thompson, Hunter S. | |
Blumenson, Martin | |
Havel, Vaclav/ Hvizdala, Karel | |
