Reviews
United States of Banana
“United States of Banana is a politically charged metaphor for the fall of the US empire and the collapse of the World Trade Center as well as a plea for subject minorities to free themselves from the yoke of domination … Braschi rewrite(s) radical politics as high art.”
Madelena Gonzalez (University of Avignon)
“Recommended for fans of philosophical fiction such as Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra.” Library Journal
“Braschi is recognized as one of today’s foremost experimental Latinx authors.”
Frederick Luis Aldama (Poets, Philosophers, Lovers: On the Writings of Giannina Braschi)
“In contemplating the heft, insight, and sheer philosophical ambition…United States of Banana is Braschi’s masterpiece, a volume that is as much a masterclass on how to romper esquemas as it is a manifesto on the increasing urgency to do so.”
John Riofrio (William and Mary)
“The novel underscores the importance of the creative process in extricating the concepts of resistance, democracy, freedom, friendship, and love from the neoliberal grasp. The multitude in the United States of Banana is a multitude of immigrants, colonized people, and political prisoners. Yet, it is also a literary multitude… on the intersections between literature, philosophy, and politics.”
Alexandra Perisic (University of Miami)
“Braschi’s boundless imagination is captured in United States of Banana … The novel explores the life of 50 million Hispanics in the United States, the political status of Puerto Rico, and the relationship between the US and Latin America.”
Associated Press
“It is forthright in disabusing readers about how so called ‘Banana Republics’ come about and wonders aloud, from its title on, about the location and order of knowledge said to grow them… Braschi is always clear about cultural force: ‘The powers of the world are shifting.”
Peter Hitchock (The Graduate Center, CUNY)
“A lucid, scathing, and sardonic confrontation with what we might call the “Holy Trinity of the American Way of Life: Power, Money, and Success.” What happens to be, although increasingly less so, the universal model for a brand of political recta ratio, or virtuous reason, is little more than camouflage for an extremely violent society, impotently enthralled with its own culture of death.”
Francisco José Ramos (Universidad de Puerto Rico)
“Revolutionary in subject and form, United States of Banana is a beautifully written declaration of personal independence. Giannina Braschi’s take on U.S. relations with our southern neighbors in Latin America and the Caribbean, most especially Puerto Rico, is an eye-opener. The ire and irony make for an explosive combination and a very exciting read.”
Barney Rosset (Evergreen Review)
“The best work of art on the subject of September 11th that I have ever experienced.”
Mircea Cărtărescu (Author of Nostalgia)
“I have always admired Giannina Braschi’s work for its daring: political, aesthetic, linguistic, and social. United States of Banana provokes the reader by transgressing genres and political boundaries.”
Harold Augenbraum (National Book Awards)
“Uttered in pristine Latino American English, die-hard and all, this book sets itself apart from the lyrical, trans-Hispanic Spanish and the Spanglish-and-engañol cocktails of Braschi’s previous two books. As always, it bears the imprint of her languages of love for the world.”
María M. Carrion (Emory University)
“Finally, someone takes the question of identity politics and raucously up ends it as a feast of language. Three cheers for this book!”
Francine Masiello (UC Berkeley)
“Experimental, revolutionary and profoundly philosophical, United States of Banana is to be read as The Waste Land of the 21stCentury.”
Cristina Garrigós (Evergreen Review)