New Book: Putinoika

A new tragicomedy from the iconic Puerto Rican author Giannina Braschi

PUTINOIKA

Putinoika is multi-genre epic exploring the frenzy and plague in the era of Putin and Trump. Drawing inspiration from ancient Greek tragedies, PUTINOIKA unfolds in three parts: Palinode, Bacchae, and Putinoika. Amid a world overflowing with collusion, delusion, and pollution, hope not only stands resilient but also ascends to higher realms through exhilarating new literary forms, poetic expressions, and a renewed faith in creativity. 

Forrest Gander, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, lauds Putinoika, stating, “If, as in Ezra Pound’s translation of Aristotle, the ‘swift perception of relations’ is truly the ‘hallmark of genius,’ it’s in the brightly lit halls of Braschi’s books where poetry is tested and stamped with such a mark.”

“This powerful, funny, profound, wise, crazed book is a wild ride. It is a bomb (a poem?, a novel?, a play?, fiction? essay?, comedy?, drama? all of the above?). It is a meditation on poetry, art, the pandemia, politics, Trump, his wall, the Putinas, the author, Puerto Rico, Oedipus, and Baudelaire. I laughed to tears here and there while the book displays one of the cruelest portraits of our times. Bravo, Giannina!” said the legendary poet and novelist Carmen Boullosa.

“Braschi teaches us all how the barriers between languages, nationalities, styles, and genres were meant to be torn down. Her ludic intellect and literary innovation have made her a beloved fixture of the global literary ecosystem, and Putinoika will only cement this status. We are honored to have featured the first published excerpt from the book in Latin American Literature Today, and to share in Braschi’s mission of breaking through the illusory boundaries that now, more than ever, seem determined to keep us apart,” wrote Marcelo Rioseco, Editor-in-Chief, Latin American Literature Today.

“With Putinoika, Braschi makes a quantum leap which takes the novel from an unprecedented level of experimentation and into a new dimension. A polyphony of voices fizz, crackle, and cackle in a tour de force of philosophical poetry and poetical philosophy, offering a biting and hilarious denunciation of Trump’s America,” said Madelena Gonzalez, Chair of Anglophone Literature at the University of Avignon in France.

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Puerto Rican Poet and Author Inspires Creativity

PEN America calls the famous Puerto Rican poet and author Giannina Braschi “one of the most revolutionary voices” in Latin American Literature today.

Chock-full of humorous gusto and a joy for life, her iconic titles include the poetry collection Empire of Dreams, the first Spanglish novel Yo-Yo Boing!, and the geopolitical tragicomedy United States of Banana about the fall of the American empire and the liberation of Puerto Rico. Her new book Putinoika will be released in September 2024.

Her work is a hybrid of poetry, fiction, theater, and Latinx philosophy. She writes books in Spanish, Spanglish, and English on far-ranging subjects—from American immigration, economy, and colonialism to love, liberty, and creativity.

Born in San Juan, Braschi was a fashion model, singer, and tennis champion in her teen years. She studied Hispanic literatures in Madrid, Rome, London, and Rouen before settling in New York City. With a Ph.D. in Hispanic Literatures from State University of New York, Stony Brook, she taught at Rutgers University, City University of New York, and Colgate University. She has published on titans in Spanish literature including Cervantes, Garcilaso, Machado, Lorca, and Bécquer.

“Cutting-edge, influential, and even revolutionary.”

United States Library of Congress

Literary Awards and Honors

In 2022, the North American Academy of the Spanish Language (ANLE) honored Braschi with the Enrique Anderson Imbert Award. This national prize honors those who have made sustained and significant contributions to the knowledge and dissemination of the Spanish language and Hispanic cultures in the United States. “The jury unanimously selected Giannina Braschi whose rich and bountiful career defies any simplifying classification. Her prolific career, which extends from groundbreaking research on Hispanic classics to her spectacular work as a renowned and award-winning creator, places her among the most innovative and influential voices of Hispanic letters in the United States,” announced the Academy’s Director.

A Literature Fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts, Braschi has won literary awards and grants from Ford Foundation, Danforth Scholarship, New York Foundation for the Arts, Reed Foundation, InterAmericas, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, Rutgers University, and PEN America. This famous Puerto Rican poet also won the 2021 Cambiemos Prize from Cambio16 in Spain for her lifetime achievements in creating a literature of inspiration and hope. In 2024 Giannina Braschi was honored by her native City of San Juan for her contributions to Puerto Rican culture worldwide.

Latinx Philosopher Creates Hope

Giannina Braschi is a leading force in experimental literature and Latinx philosophy.  She is an advocate for Puerto Rican independence and for liberations of all kinds. In recent years, her influence can be felt in far-ranging cultural spaces such as television comedy, comic book, graphic novel, chamber music, art and design, theater play, and ecologic urbanism. Read on about the myriad of adaptations and applications of her texts by other creators–including the Giannina Chair–in World Literature Today.

The Puerto Rican author is the subject of Poets, Philosophers, Lovers: On the Writings of Giannina Braschi, an anthology edited by Frederick Luis Aldama and Tess O’Dwyer, with a preface by Ilan Stavans (University of Pittsburgh Press). This collection of essays, by fifteen scholars across diverse fields, celebrates Braschi as one of the most original and influential Latinx philosophers and poets in a generation. Since the 1980s, her linguistic and structural ingenuities, radical thinking, and humor have spanned the genres of theatre, poetry, fiction, essay, musical, manifesto, political philosophy, and spoken word. It is no wonder that CENTRO, the Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, calls Braschi “one of the most innovative writers of our time”.