Boat People

Mayra Santos-Febres is one of our most powerful writers; and BOAT PEOPLE has long been a part of the poetic counter-tradition that shaped generations of Puerto Rican poets. Thanks to Vanessa Pérez-Rosario; English-language readers are now plunged into the depths of a text that; to echo Patrick Chamoiseau; is composed of 'that strange conference of poets and great beings;' lost at sea; tossed on shores; or caught in a world without return address or safe passage. Written like a border drawn on water; this oceanic book is both a source of life and a record of death. It remains as devastatingly urgent as the day it was written.--Raquel Salas Rivera

The ocean in BOAT PEOPLE is haunted and the book is the heartbreaking journey from sea to horizon. Melancholy and songlike; Santos-Febres documents the nameless; the chum: bodies set adrift by commerce. Like M. NourBese Philips's Zong!; this phenomenal translation in which I become 'a drop of fish sweat;' my body dancing to the poetry's music but also lamenting the violences that underlie it.