Boat People

Poetry. African & African American Studies. Latinx Studies. Translated by Vanessa P廨ez-Rosario. Mayra Santos-Febres is one of our most powerful writers, and BOAT PEOPLE has long been a part of the poetic counter-tradition that shaped generations of Puerto Rican poets. Thanks to Vanessa P廨ez-Rosario, English-language readers are now plunged into the depths of a text that, to echo Patrick Chamoiseau, is composed of 'that strange conference of poets and great beings, ' lost at sea, tossed on shores, or caught in a world without return address or safe passage. Written like a border drawn on water, this oceanic book is both a source of life and a record of death. It remains as devastatingly urgent as the day it was written.--Raquel Salas Rivera

The ocean in BOAT PEOPLE is haunted and the book is the heartbreaking journey from sea to horizon. Melancholy and songlike, Santos-Febres documents the nameless, the chum: bodies set adrift by commerce. Like M. NourBese Philips's Zong!, this phenomenal translation in which I become 'a drop of fish sweat, ' my body dancing to the poetry's music but also lamenting the violences that underlie it.--Carmen Gim幯ez Smith