Formas lindas de matar: Relatos

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La capacidad amatoria es la fuerza que transita en Formas lindas de matar. Los personajes se entrecruzan en reflejos generados por los intervalos de la memoria que no cesa de reaparecer para cuestionarse a s misma. Aqu , leer es indagar la intimidad de la confesi n. Mirarnos ante los espejos que reproducen la vida distorsionada, es como pasar de una dimensi n a otra. La propia existencia es una neblina hasta la llegada del final, inevitable. La isla es su met fora; su teor a es Volver a empezar. Presenciamos la fragmentaci n de un migrante, un puertorrique o que se ha ido para olvidar, que luego de andar por el mundo se sinti ajeno a todo. Ser desde ese sentido de extra eza que se nos develan historias compartidas, sea de un periodo, o la de los or genes de nuestra m sica como registro de contacto por las calles y los paisajes urbanos de Carolina a Santurce o al Viejo San Juan. Con la misma facilidad, la trayectoria vital en los desdoblamientos de la voz narradora enlaza el tr nsito de Carolina a Madrid como uno, tan fluido como torpe, comparable al movimiento de unos amantes imposibles, amantes por venganza o quiz s solo porque ha sido vertida la gota que desborda el vaso. La graf a del escribiente traza en sinuosidades el volver a lo que no se quiere recordar porque horroriza de dolor y de verg enza. Morir, matar o suicidarse, es una pol mica persistente, tan humana que nos acompa a a lo largo de la vida, como si estar vivo fuera estar en constante estado son mbulo, sin acertar a explicarlo. Es que morir depende de lo que se entienda por morir, morir tambi n puede ser un oficio.

The spirit that animates Formas lindas de matar is the capacity to love. These are stories about the force of memories that appear and disappear repeateadly, questioning the truth of memory itself. Through the intimacy of confession we see ourselves before mirrors that reproduce lived experiences as in passing from one dimension to another. In these stories we witness the fragmented self of the migrant, a Puerto Rican that has left his island to forget. The island is his metaphor and his theory is to start anew, once and again. It is from the vantage point of foreigness that these stories reveal shared histories, whether of a time and place, love, music, across settings from Carolina, Puerto Rico, New York, or Madrid, a movement comparable to the journey of impossible lovers, lovers out of spite, or simply because they are compelled by the force of circumstance. The stories go back to that which we would rather forget out of horror or shame. To die, to kill, or to die by one's hand is a persistent polemic, so human that it never leaves us, as if the state of being were a mix of life and loss, permanent and inexplicable. Readers will go through Formas lindas de matar as if through a minefield of possibilities, where loving and dying depends on how love and death are concieved or imagined.

Author Bio

Jos Edgardo Cruz Figueroa was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He has an MA in Latin American Studies with a concentration in literature from Queens College, CUNY and a PhD in political science from the Graduate Center, CUNY. He teaches political science and Latino studies at the University at Albany, SUNY. His academic work has been published by Temple University Press, CELAC, Lexington Books, and Centro Press. His creative work has been published in the journals Confluencia, Sargasso, 80grados, Cruce, El Sol Latino, Siglo22, and the Latin American Literary Review. Formas Lindas de Matar is an antology of his published short stories.