My Body is Paper
Stories and Poems
Gil Cuadros author Kevin Martin editor Pablo Alvarez editor Terry Wolverton editor Rafael Prez-Torres editor
Format:Paperback
Publisher:City Lights Books
Published:18th Jul '24
Should be back in stock very soon
- Co-op available
- Print galleys available upon request. E-galley on Edelweiss.
- My Body is Paper will be published in June in honor of PRIDE month perfect for bookstore features/tables.
- Tour info: Commemorative group events planned in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area.
- National media campaign: Pursuing excerpts, reviews, features, and interviews with radio, newspapers, magazine, literary journals, websites, and blogs interested in LGBTQ+, Latinx, and literary works.
- Online/social media campaign: Includes City Lights’s robust and active social media: Instagram (58K followers), Facebook (60K followers) and Twitter (132K followers)
- Promotion through forthcoming author web site
- Bookseller promotion: We’re pursuing nominations for IndieNext.
"Cuadros died of AIDS in 1996, two years after chronicling the disease in City of God, a book of poems and stories about queer Los Angeles. His belated follow-up takes the same form, with the same bracing urgency."—The New York Times
"Without doubt one of the sexiest and most important writers I've ever read."—Justin Torres, author of Blackouts
"My Body Is Paper is a testament to the unrelenting literary magic of Gil Cuadros. Through poetry and prose, Cuadros holds a mirror up to California, reflecting this land of dualities back at us. He gives us sunshine and sickness, ecstasy and drudgery, eros and death. I am so very grateful for his work."—Myriam Gurba, author of Creep: Accusations and Confessions
Since City of God (1994) by Gil Cuadros was published 30 years ago, it has become an unlikely classic (an "essential book of Los Angeles" according to the LA Times), touching readers and writers who find in his work a singular evocation of Chicanx life in Los Angeles during and leading up to the AIDS epidemic, which took his life in 1996. Little did we know, Cuadros continued writing exuberant prose and poems in the period between his one published book and his untimely death at the age of 34. This recently discovered treasure, My Body Is Paper, is a stunning portrait of sex, family, religion, culture of origin, and the betrayals of the body. Tender and blistering, erotic and spiritual—Cuadros dives into these complexities which we grapple with today, showing us how to survive these times, and beyond.
Praise for My Body Is Paper:
"It is so much more than a collection of posthumous writing. It is so much more than a whisper of what might have been. Rather, this is a book that functions as both testament and epitaph while enlarging our appreciation of just how beautiful an artist Cuadros was."—David Ulin, Alta Magazine
"My Body Is Paper reads like the best memoirs because of the way it holds up a mirror at a slant. In conversation with other vulnerable collections such as Reinaldo Arenas's Before Night Falls . . ."—Gabriel X Hendrix, Los Angeles Review of Books
"Cuadros's collection went undiscovered for nearly 30 years after his death, from an AIDS-related illness, in 1996. Here, the author of the magnificent City of God explores religion, family, and culture to present an unflinchingly naked account of his experience as a spiritual being bound in a too easily corrupted body."—Alta Journal
"A moving, necessary tribute to a singular voice of queer literature."—Kirkus Reviews
"This blazing collection of unpublished stories and poems by Cuadros (1962-1996; City of God) portrays queer Chicano beauty and resilience during the AIDS epidemic. . . . This is a welcome tribute to a writer who was cut short in his prime."—Publishers Weekly
"The sparks of clarity and brilliance that will later inspire a cadre of writers are all here, igniting the pathway that Gil Cuadros set before us. It is astonishing to behold the ardor of vulnerability in his art. We are indebted to his daring—how much brighter we all burn for his insistent testimony, his desire unabashed and incandescent."—Manuel Muñoz, author of The Consequences
"In his poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, Gil Cuadros speaks the reality of his heart, honoring not only his suffering with HIV/AIDS but his survival."— Eloise Klein Healy, author, A Brilliant Loss
"I weep with this book, although it is a celebration, it reminds me of the possibility of a writer called back too soon. The language is a song grounded in earth and culture. There is such rhythm I languish in the stories, even as they make me miss more and more. I don't want it to end, so I keep going back and reading it over and over, each time a reference unfolds differently, the words strike other meanings, the memories have different colors, and I am left with who we all were."—Luis Alfaro, playwright
"This recently rediscovered collection of stories and poems is a poignant window into the adolescent life of Gil Cuadros as a young gay man navigating Chicanx Los Angeles. His candid prose takes us through a raw exploration of sex, religion, drugs, heritage, and family, all the way up to his untimely diagnosis and subsequent death from AIDS. Spiritual, tender, and seductive, My Body Is Paper is already an essential classic."—Magnolia, Bookshop Santa Cruz
ISBN: 9780872869097
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
220 pages