"?Entiendes?" is literally translated as "Do you understand? Do you get it?" But those who do "get it" will also hear within this question a subtler meaning: "Are you queer? Are you one of us?" The issues of gay and lesbian identity represented by this question are explored for the first time in the context of Spanish and Hispanic literature in this groundbreaking anthology.
Combining intimate knowledge of Spanish-speaking cultures with contemporary queer theory, these essays address texts that share both a common language and a concern with lesbian, gay, and bisexual identities. Using a variety of approaches, the contributors tease the homoerotic messages out of a wide range of works, from chronicles of colonization in the Caribbean to recent Puerto Rican writing, from the work of Cervantes to that of the most outrageous contemporary Latina performance artists. This volume offers a methodology for examining work by authors and artists whose sexuality is not so much open as "an open secret," respecting, for example, the biographical privacy of writers like Gabriela Mistral while responding to the voices that speak in their writing. Contributing to an archeology of queer discourses, ?Entiendes? also includes important studies of terminology and encoded homosexuality in Argentine literature and Caribbean journalism of the late nineteenth century.
Whether considering homosexual panic in the stories of Borges, performances by Latino AIDS activists in Los Angeles, queer lives in turn-of-the-century Havana and Buenos Aires, or the mapping of homosexual geographies of 1930s New York in Lorca's "Ode to Walt Whitman," ?Entiendes? is certain to stir interest at the crossroads of sexual and national identities while proving to be an invaluable resource.

About the Author

Emilie L. Bergmann is Associate Professor of Spanish at the University of California, Berkeley and a coauthor of Women, Culture and Politics in Latin America.

Paul Julian Smith is Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Cambridge University. He is the author of many books including, Desire Unlimited: The Cinema of Pedro Almodovar and Laws of Desire: Questions of Homosexuality in Spanish Writing and Film, 1960-90.

Reviews
"People working in gay and lesbian studies in Hispanic literatures or cultural studies will not be able to continue to work without this volume close at hand. ?Entiendes? provides both impetus and standards for all subsequent work in the field."-Benigno Sanchez-Eppler, Brandeis University
"This is a groundbreaking collection of essays on gay and lesbian topics in Hispanic literatures-there is nothing that compares with it."-George Yudice, Hunter College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York



Book Information
ISBN 9780822316152
Author Paul Julian Smith
Format Paperback
Page Count 448
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press
Weight(grams) 862g