Voyages of an Oceanless Boat. By Jose Coronado-Flores. ISBN: 978-0-915745-33-3. Library of Congress Control Number: 2020938834. B&W on cream paper, 6"x9", 130 pages. $16.95
Fiction / Hispanic & Latino, Central American Fiction, Latino Hispanic literature, Hispanic Latino Economic conditions Literature, Latinos Hispanics--Social life and customs Fiction, Barrio life Fiction
Voyages of an Oceanless Boat tells an untold
story from the depths of American poverty: a story dripping in surrealism.
Izzy, Michael and Oscar are the unwilling players in a cruel performance
scripted by meticulous planning to keep their people confined to the hood. As
they begin to peak behind the curtain of reality, this script of violence, drugs,
and destitute conditions distorts the world around them. With each step they
take, the mosaic of an American dream begins to crumble. The pieces on the
ground before them arrange an image of despair and futility.
Jose Coronado-Flores is Guatemalan-immigrant writer with a
Bachelor’s from Harvard University where he was the first author of a creative
thesis in the Comparative Literature department. He came to the US, specifically
Florida, when he was four years old, and lived intermittently in Prince George’s County,
Maryland. He made his way through poverty and struggles and ended up at Harvard
after completing the International Baccalaureate program. He loves to write and
have a grand vision that contemporary literature will reflect diverse voices
from all marginalized groups telling stories rich in literary creativity.
Coronado-Flores has
produced a formally innovative and morally courageous debut work revealing how
"poverty is staged" for kids growing up in racially segregated
neighborhoods all over the United States. In places like these, police flashers
are the spotlight, bullets provide the sound effects, and school bus bullies
act as understudies for the gang members and law enforcement between whom the
dream of a normal childhood is slowly suffocated. In beautifully crafted
vignettes, Coronado-Flores's protagonists try to navigate these conditions on
an "oceanless boat" — like them, built for freedom and then run
aground. Searing and powerful, this work could not be more urgent in our
present moment. --Roanne Kantor, Professor of English, Stanford University
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