Latinx Book Club: Plantains and Our Becoming by Melania Luisa Marte
December 6 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
The Writer's Block
519 S 6th St #100, Las Vegas, NV 89101
Latinx Book Club: Plantains and Our Becoming by Melania Luisa Marte
About the Event
So you’ve read Bolaño, Allende, Márquez, but find yourself craving more Latinx books published, say, within the last five years? Centering voices from Central America and the Caribbean? Queer stories? ¿Libros que te enseñen algo nuevo y diferente? Then this book club’s for you! Join us as we gather to discuss some of the brilliant new books being published by writers across the Latinx diaspora. No te lo pierdas. The book club is open to folks of all backgrounds, as well as English, Spanish, and bilingual (ENG/SP) speakers.
Edgar Gomez is a Florida-born writer with roots in Nicaragua and Puerto Rico. A graduate of University of California, Riverside’s MFA program, their words have appeared in Poets & Writers, Narratively, Catapult, Lithub, The Rumpus, and elsewhere online and in print. Their memoir, High-Risk Homosexual, was called a “breath of fresh air” by The New York Times, named a Best Book of 2022 by Publisher’s Weekly, Buzzfeed, and Electric Literature, and received a 2023 Stonewall Honor Award. Their second book, a memoir about money, Florida, and surviving under capitalism titled Alligator Tears, will be out in 2025 from Crown.
Poet and musician Melania Luisa Marte opens Plantains and Our Becoming by pointing out that Afro-Latina is not a word recognized by the dictionary. But the dictionary is far from a record of the truth. What does it mean, then, to tend to your own words and your own record—to build upon the legacies of your ancestors?
In this imaginative, blistering poetry collection, Marte looks at the identities and histories of the Dominican Republic and Haiti to celebrate and center the Black diasporic experience. Through the exploration of themes like self-love, nationalism, displacement, generational trauma, and ancestral knowledge, this collection uproots stereotypes while creating a new joyous vision for Black identity and personhood.