The Braschian Wave: All the Solitude of an Empire in a Bottle Thrown into the Sea, by Carlos Labbé

The Braschian Wave: All the Solitude of an Empire in a Bottle Thrown into the Sea, by Carlos Labbé Essay [email protected] Wed, 06/28/2023 - 14:55 Photo by Javardh / UnsplashCarlos Labbé wonders whether it is “still possible to speak of experimental writing when we live in a reality where facts are constantly written in a language already programmed by someone else.” Examining the work of Giannina Braschi, he makes a case that it is, indeed, still possible. The long work of Boricua Giannina Braschi (b. 1953) is so short that it can’t be subjected to any measurement, since even if it includes books that can be counted on the fingers of a single hand, it is immeasurable. In the functional dimensions of a literature of characters contained in a box, of narratives that are pure anecdote because they confuse the need for a hook to lure in readers with the propensity to be all claws and jaws, of the metamorphic lyricism of Empire of Dreams (1988), and even the geopolitical urgency of Braschi’s new book, Putinoika, there always seems to be an imminent wave about to break over the harbor that is customary literary language. And Braschi’s voice confirms it every time: whoever knows the ocean knows that waves never break. Well, for anyone who reads even one of her books, it becomes transparent—after the last page—that for there to be a wave there must be an ocean, movements of large bodies of water—what else are we?—superficial and... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'

[ World Literature Today | 2023-06-28 19:55:41 UTC ]

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