The Institute of Puerto Rican Culture (ICP), its publishing house Editorial ICP, and Ediciones Callejón launched the book Cuentos “completos” Manuel Ramos Otero on December 12, 2023, at the Victoria Espinosa Theater in Santurce (San Juan, Puerto Rico). This edition gathers published and unpublished stories by the author. Here are excerpts from El Adoquín Times.
This publication collects the literary work of Manuel Ramos Otero (1948-1990), one of the most innovative Puerto Rican writers of the 20th century. His prose expresses themes concerning the Puerto Rican archipelago and the diaspora, [as well as] his anticolonial and feminist polemics. His work turned the short story genre into a hybrid and intersectional one. In his stories, the writer talks about the modern and repressive Puerto Rico of the 50s and 60s, meditates on the global spread of AIDS, and the grief that was experienced on the island and the diaspora. The ICP had previously published a posthumous anthology with stories by Ramos Otero in 1992, titled Cuentos de buena tinta.
Although this edition is published more than three decades after the death of this short story writer, novelist, poet, and professor from Manatí, the director of the ICP Publishing House, Ernesto Rentas, expressed that Ramos Otero’s stories continue to be relevant today, since they touch upon issues related to the Puerto Rican diaspora and the LGBTT community. “The book has a prologue written by Arnaldo Cruz, who details the importance of Ramos Otero vis-a-vis other authors of the time. Ramos Otero was a pillar in the process of speaking about the rights of the LGBTT community in the 1970s. He was vocal on controversial issues, such as Puerto Rico as a colony, issues of the rights of AIDS patients, problems that were not exactly touched by other authors… but he [Ramos Otero] was an important exponent on these topics in his texts,” Rentas highlighted.
[The book was presented] by the compiler of the stories, Arnaldo Cruz Malavé, and authors Mayra Santos Febres and Rubén Ríos Ávila. [. . .]
The editor of the prologue Cristina Martínez Pedraza offered details about the story selection process. “Ramos Otero’s documents were acquired by Columbia University and from that archive, which is not yet digitized, in his research Arnaldo not only collected stories that were already published, but also unpublished stories. That is why (in the title) the word complete is in quotes because it is possible that there are other stories that we do not know about, or that may not have been published, as is the case of these unpublished stories that are presented for the first time in this anthology.” [. . .]
For more information about this publication, you may write to asuarez@icp.pr.gov at Editorial ICP.
Excerpts translated by Ivette Romero. For full, original article, see https://eladoquintimes.com/2023/12/10/icp-y-su-editorial-presentan-el-libro-cuentos-completos-de-manuel-ramos-otero/
The Institute of Puerto Rican Culture (ICP), its publishing house Editorial ICP, and Ediciones Callejón launched the book Cuentos “completos” Manuel Ramos Otero on December 12, 2023, at the Victoria Espinosa Theater in Santurce (San Juan, Puerto Rico). This edition gathers published and unpublished stories by the author. Here are excerpts from El Adoquín Times.
