Written in 1956 and staged in 1958 at the 1st Festival of Puerto Rican Theater [Primer Festival de Teatro Puertorriqueño] Francisco Arriví’s play Vejigantes explores conflicts of race, class, and gender explored in the setting of the Feast of Santiago [Fiestas de Santiago] celebrated in Loíza, in northeastern Puerto Rico. Since then, it has seen multiple editions published through the years. This new edition is a translation by Thomas Wayne Edison, with an introduction and notes by the translator and a forward by dramatist, actor, and theater critic Roberto Ramos-Perea. The book will be published by Liverpool University Press on February 28, 2026.
Description: Vejigantes: The Masked Mulatta is a translation of a very popular Puerto Rican play published by the island’s Father of Puerto Rican Theater, Francisco Arriví in 1958. This work reveals the complexities of internalized self-hatred based on natural hair texture of individuals of African ancestry on the island and cultural tensions that arise when the United States arrives to the island in the middle of the twentieth century as result of Operation Bootstrap (1947). The play reflects the cultural difference between the mainland and the island at a time when many companies established on the island. This translation will allow this wonderful drama to be accessible to an English-speaking audience. The work translates the central theme of imposition of colonial and imperialist values, while keeping the rich culture of la isla de encanto (Island of Enchantment).
Dr Thomas Wayne Edison is an Associate Professor of Spanish in the Department of Classical and Modern Languages at the University of Louisville, Louisville, KY. His area of scholarship includes Afro-Caribbean Culture and Identity. This two-time Fulbright Scholar published his first book titled Ashe-Caribbean Literary Aesthetic in the Cuban, Colombian, Costa Rican, and Panamanian Novel of Resistance in 2020 with Lexington Books. The book focuses on the intersection between African spirituality and selected Hispanophone Caribbean novel. His most recent book that he edited is titled Candombe: arte universal and was published in Baker Books (2024). Dr. Edison is very committed to looking at Black identity from a global perspective, especially the erasure of Afro-Latinx populations.
For more information, see https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.3828/9781805967187
Also see https://museocoleccion.uprrp.edu/objects/6457/vejigantes
Written in 1956 and staged in 1958 at the 1st Festival of Puerto Rican Theater [Primer Festival de Teatro Puertorriqueño] Francisco Arriví’s play Vejigantes explores conflicts of race, class, and gender explored in the setting of the Feast of Santiago [Fiestas de Santiago] celebrated in Loíza, in northeastern Puerto Rico. Since then, it has seen multiple editions
