Mundo Cruel (7 page)
Authors: Luis Negron
Tags: #mundo cruel, #puerto rico, #santurce, #luis negrón, #suzanne jill levine, #sexuality, #LGBT, #gay, #collection, #story, #community, #manuel puig, #transgressive, #religion, #humor
A Maritza Espinal, Gabriel Espinal,
and Suzanne Jill Levine, gracias.
I would like to acknowledge my friend and colleague Leo Cabranes-Grant for his invaluable help with this translation.
Luis Negrón was born in the city of Guayama, Puerto Rico, in 1970. He is coeditor of
Los otros cuerpos
, an anthology of queer writing from Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rican diaspora. The original Spanish language edition of
Mundo Cruel
, first published in Puerto Rico in 2010 by La Secta de Los Perros, then by Libros AC in subsequent editions, is now in its third printing. It has never before appeared in English. Negrón lives in Santurce, Puerto Rico.
Suzanne Jill Levine's many translations include the works of Guillermo Cabrera Infante and Manuel Puig. She is the editor of Penguin Classics Jorge Luis Borges series and author of
The Subversive Scribe: Translating Latin American Fiction
. She is the winner of the 2012 PEN Center USA Literary Award for her translation of José Donoso's
The Lizard's Tale
.
Seven Stories Press is an independent book publisher based in New York City. We publish works of the imagination by such writers as Nelson Algren, Russell Banks, Octavia E. Butler, Ani DiFranco, Assia Djebar, Ariel Dorfman, Coco Fusco, Barry Gifford, Martha Long, Luis Negrón, Hwang Sok-yong, Lee Stringer, and Kurt Vonnegut, to name a few, together with political titles by voices of conscience, including Subhankar Banerjee, the Boston Women's Health Collective, Noam Chomsky, Angela Y. Davis, Human Rights Watch, Derrick Jensen, Ralph Nader, Loretta Napoleoni, Gary Null, Greg Palast, Project Censored, Barbara Seaman, Alice Walker, Gary Webb, and Howard Zinn, among many others. Seven Stories Press believes publishers have a special responsibility to defend free speech and human rights, and to celebrate the gifts of the human imagination, wherever we can. In 2012 we launched Triangle Square
books for young readers
with strong social justice and narrative components, telling personal stories of courage and commitment. For additional information, visit www.sevenstories.com.