{"id":293936,"date":"2013-04-30T19:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-30T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2013\/04\/30\/mundo-cruel-by-luis-negron\/"},"modified":"2018-04-16T15:56:40","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T15:56:40","slug":"mundo-cruel-by-luis-negron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2013\/04\/30\/mundo-cruel-by-luis-negron\/","title":{"rendered":"Mundo Cruel by Luis Negr\u00f3n"},"content":{"rendered":"

Luis Negr\u00f3n\u2019s debut collection Mundo Cruel<\/em> is a journey through Puerto Rico\u2019s gay world. Published in 2010, the book is already in its fifth Spanish edition. Here in the U.S., the collection has been published by Seven Stories Press and translated from the Spanish by Suzanne Jill Levine, winner of the 2012 PEN<\/span> Center USA<\/span> Literary Award.<\/p>\n

Negr\u00f3n lives in Puerto Rico and works as a bookseller, and is also coeditor of an anthology of queer writing from Puerto Rico. Other than the recently translated Mundo Cruel<\/em>, his only other work in English is the essay \u201cThe Pain of Reading,\u201d which appeared in the Sunday Review of the New York Times<\/em>, and was also translated by Levine.<\/p>\n

The characters in Mundo Cruel<\/em> constantly face prejudice, heartbreak, poverty, gossip, and death. Is the fictional world in Luis Negr\u00f3n\u2019s stories cruel? Most certainly. But Mundo Cruel<\/em> is peopled by resilient, funny, and surprisingly optimistic characters. The book consists of nine tightly constructed stories mostly set in Santurce, a neighborhood in the outskirts of San Juan. What\u2019s truly surprising in Mundo Cruel<\/em> isn\u2019t the queer themes it explores, but the degree of narrative control and skill present in Negr\u00f3n\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

The first story, \u201cThe Chosen One,\u201d is about a teenager\u2019s unique relationship with God and the allure he exerts on certain members of his congregation. In \u201cThe Vampire of Moca,\u201d a person\u2019s crush gets out of hand, paving the way for jealousy, rage, obsession, and finally forgiveness. Sound heavy? This is actually one of Negr\u00f3n\u2019s funniest stories. I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of Santurce. The story\u2019s setting seemed to enhance the protagonist\u2019s feelings of entrapment:<\/p>\n

\n

Blocks and blocks full of doctor\u2019s offices and temples\u2014Catholic, Evangelical, Mormon, Rosicrucian, Espiritista, Jewish, and yoga-ist, if that\u2019s what you call it. The stench of sewers 24\/7. Unbearable heat. Reggaeton, old school salsa, boleros, bachatas, jukeboxes, pool halls, slot machines. Topless bars, Dominican bars, gay bars. Catholic schools, beauty schools, vocational schools, and schools where you get a professional degree in just one year and without much homework. Fabric stores, arts and crafts stores, no-prescription drugstores, barbershops and hair salons.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cFor Goyama\u201d is a terrific rendering of the melodrama found in the telenovelas so prevalent in Hispanic society. With campy humor, Negr\u00f3n portrays the protagonist\u2019s loss, loneliness, and desperation as he tries to get a hold of a friend who owes him money. This is so he can send his dog, Goyama, to a taxidermist. Here, the entire action takes place through the letters the protagonist sends his friend during the weeks he\u2019s trying to track said friend down.<\/p>\n

\u201cLa Edwin\u201d and \u201cJunito\u201d are monologues told through a phone call. Negr\u00f3n\u2019s acute ear for dialogue and urban orality is immediately evident, and Levine\u2019s translation shines. Many Puerto Ricans are in fact bilingual, or understand quite a lot of words in English. So Levine\u2019s decision to keep certain Spanish words in her translation is a nod to the code-switching that occurs in both countries.<\/p>\n

\n

Me, I talk polito chicken, you know, Spanglish, but I get by. If they talk to me slow I can follow, but when they start talking fast with all that guachul\u00edn, man, that\u2019s when they lose me.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cBotella\u201d shows a hustler who, after having sex with a jon, finds him dead several hours later. I don\u2019t want to give too much away here, but let me just say that after you read this story, you\u2019ll never look at a bottle of bleach the same way again.<\/p>\n

The seventh story in the collection, \u201cSo Many or On How the Wagging Tongue Sometimes Can Cast a Spell,\u201d is structured like a dramatic script. Two intolerant mothers discuss the upbringing of a queer boy living in their neighborhood. Under the guise of good Samaritans, they unleash their prejudice, xenophobia, and cruelty on the boy, his family, and all who do not conform to their expectations.<\/p>\n

The collection closes with \u201cThe Garden\u201d and the title story, \u201cMundo Cruel.\u201d The former is narrated by Nestito, whose lover, Willie, is dying of AIDS<\/span>. This is the most somber story in the collection and Negr\u00f3n establishes himself as a deeply humane writer. \u201cMundo Cruel\u201d is a satire on a world without homophobia, where the main characters, Jos\u00e9 A. and Panchi, must confront their biggest fear: tolerance.<\/p>\n

Mundo Cruel<\/em> might be a quick read, yet this is the type of book whose characters will linger in your imagination\u2014it might take some effort to shake them off. Negr\u00f3n is an incredibly gifted writer whose vivid prose, diverse writing style, and humor makes reading this book a true joy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Luis Negr\u00f3n\u2019s debut collection Mundo Cruel is a journey through Puerto Rico\u2019s gay world. Published in 2010, the book is already in its fifth Spanish edition. Here in the U.S., the collection has been published by Seven Stories Press and translated from the Spanish by Suzanne Jill Levine, winner of the 2012 PEN Center USA […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":166,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67486],"tags":[51376,51366,51356,44956,1646,46066,19526],"class_list":["post-293936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-camila-santos","tag-luis-negron","tag-mundo-cruel","tag-puerto-rican-literature","tag-review","tag-seven-stories-press","tag-suzanne-jill-levine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/166"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293936"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":318326,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293936\/revisions\/318326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}