Giannina Braschi
Giannina Braschi (born February 5, 1953) is a Puerto Rican poet, novelist, dramatist, and scholar. Her notable works include Empire of Dreams (1988), Yo-Yo Boing! (1998), United States of Banana (2011), and Putinoika (2024).
Giannina Braschi
- Born
- 1953. · San Juan.
- Nationality
- United States.
- Occupation
- poet, actress, novelist, writer, university teacher, essayist, journalist and tennis player.
- Fields
- poetry, essay, literature and tennis.
- Education
- Universidad del Sagrado Corazón.
- Known for
- Yo-Yo Boing!, United States of Banana and Braschi's Empire of Dreams.
- Honours
- National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.
- Languages
- Spanish and English.
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Giannina Braschi (born February 5, 1953) is a Puerto Rican poet, novelist, dramatist, and scholar. Her notable works include Empire of Dreams (1988), Yo-Yo Boing! (1998), United States of Banana (2011), and Putinoika (2024).
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wikidata · Q452761 · wikipedia · Giannina Braschi
In this article
Early life
Early life
Braschi writes cross-genre literature and political philosophy in Spanish, Spanglish, and English. Her work is a hybrid of poetry, metafiction, postdramatic theatre, memoir, manifesto, and political philosophy. Her writings explore the enculturation journey of Hispanic immigrants, and dramatize the three main political options of Puerto Rico: independence, colony, and state.
Giannina Braschi studied at Universidad del Sagrado Corazón. the recorded working language is Spanish and English. The field of work recorded is poetry, essay and literature. Employment is recorded with Rutgers University, Queens College and Colgate University. Works named in the authority record are Yo-Yo Boing!, United States of Banana and Braschi's Empire of Dreams. Distinctions recorded are National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.
Giannina Braschi was born to an upper-class family of Italian ancestry in San Juan, Puerto Rico. In her teen years, she was a founding member of the San Juan Children's Choir, a fashion model, and a tennis champion. Her father Euripides ("Pilo") Braschi was also a tennis champion. Her brother, Miguel Braschi, was the plaintiff in a landmark case in 1989 regarding the rights of same-sex couples. In the 1970s, Braschi studied literature and philosophy in Madrid, Rome, Rouen, and London, before she settled in New York City. She credited her start in poetry to the older Spanish poets who mentored her when she lived in Madrid: Claudio Rodríguez, Carlos Bousoño, Vicente Aleixandre, and Blas de Otero. Braschi credits Puerto Rican playwright René Marqués and public intellectual Nilita Vientós Gastón as her early mentors.
Academic career
Academic career
With a PhD in Hispanic Literatures from State University of New York, Stony Brook (1980), Braschi was a professor at Rutgers University, City University of New York, and Colgate University. Braschi has received awards and fellowships from institutions including Ford Foundation, Danforth Scholarship, National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, Rutgers University, and PEN, among others. She published a book on the poetry of Gustavo Adolfo Becquer and essays on Cervantes, Garcilaso, César Vallejo, Juan Ramon Jimenez and Federico García Lorca.
Literary career
Literary career
Braschi's work is situated in the Latino avant-garde, a "burgeoning body of work that testifies to Latino writers’ abiding interest in the avant-garde as a means for engaging ideas of material, social relevance". Her writings are also placed within the fields of Postcolonial, Postmodern, and Nuyorican literatures, as well as Latino political philosophy. Braschi is considered a "revolutionary voice" in contemporary Latin American literature".
Spanish: El Imperio de los sueños
Spanish: El Imperio de los sueños
In the 1980s, Braschi wrote dramatic poetry in Spanish prose in New York City. Her postmodern poetry titles were published in Barcelona, Spain, including: Asalto al tiempo (Assault on Time, 1980), La Comedia profana (Profane Comedy, 1985), and El Imperio de los sueños (Empire of Dreams, 1988). She was part of the Nuyorican movement. New York City is the site and subject of much of her poetry. In a climactic episode of Braschi's Empire of Dreams, "Pastoral or the Inquisition of Memories", shepherds invade 5th Avenue during the Puerto Rican Day Parade and take over the City of New York; the shepherds ring the bells of St. Patrick's Cathedral, and seize the observation deck of the Empire State Building. Immigrant characters play the role of other characters, swapping names, genders, personal histories, and identities. Alicia Ostriker situates her gender-bending and genre-blending poetry as having a "sheer erotic energy that defies definition and dogma."
Spanglish: Yo-Yo Boing!
Spanglish: Yo-Yo Boing!
She published the first full-length Spanglish novel Yo-Yo Boing! in 1998. Yo-Yo Boing! explores "the lived experiences of urban life for Hispanics, as in the case with New York City, and her principal interest is in representing how individuals move in and out of different cultural coordinates, including one so crucial as language." The book was written in an era of renewed calls for English-only laws, ethnic cleansing campaigns, and corporate censorship. "For decades, Dominican and Puerto Rican authors have carried out a linguistic revolution", noted The Boston Globe, "and Giannina Braschi, especially in her novel Yo-Yo Boing!, testify to it".
English: United States of Banana
English: United States of Banana
Braschi published the geopolitical comic-tragedy United States of Banana, her first book written entirely in English, in 2011. It is a postmodern cross-genre work that opens with the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11. The work is a critique of 21st-century capitalism and the global war on terror. Subjects include immigration, mass incarceration, financial terrorism, colonial debt structures, and "power imbalances within the Americas." The work is celebratory of foreign influences. Braschi stated in Evergreen Review that she considered herself "more French than Beckett, Picasso and Gertrude Stein", and identifies as the "granddaughter of Alfred Jarry and Antonin Artaud, bastard child of Samuel Beckett and James Joyce, half-sister to Heiner Müller, kissing cousin of Tadeusz Kantor, and lover of Witkiewicz".
English: Putinoika, a Modern Bacchae
English: Putinoika, a Modern Bacchae
Braschi's epic tragicomedy Putinoika (Brown Ink, Flowersong, 2024) deals with frenzy and plague in the Putin and Trump era. The mixed-genre work is based on the ancient Greek tragedy Bacchae by Euripides. The political satire unfolds in three parts: Palinode, Bacchae, and Putinoika. Themes include delusion, collusion, pollution. There is a vast array of historical, mythic, and contemporary political characters spanning Antigone, Electra, Dionysus, Mari Callas, El Greco, Greta Thurnberg, Nancy Pelosi, Melania, Ivanka, Pendejo. There are also sets of humorous characters or literary choruses such as the Muses of Bacchus, the Agents of Pendejo, the Putinas of Putin, the Maenads, Doubles of Trump. Ending with a mediation of creativity and the creation of a new genre, the work has received critical praise from poets and scholars such as Forrest Gander, Carmen Boullosa, Miguel-Angel Zapata, and Elidio La Torre-Lagares, among others.
Adaptations and translations
Adaptations and translations
Giannina Braschi's texts have been adapted and applied to popular culture and fields such as television comedy, chamber music, comic books, industrial design, and ecological urban planning. Michael Zansky has used Braschi's texts in his paintings and Michael Somoroff has created short films with her works. There is a theater play by Juan Pablo Felix, a Giannina Chair by industrial designer Ian Stell, chamber music by Puerto Rican composer Gabriel Bouche Caro, and a graphic novel by Joakim Lindengren of United States of Banana. Puerto Rican composer Gabriel Bouche Caro has composed chamber music works with her poems. There is a namesake Giannina chair designed by American industrial designer Ian Stell. Her books have been translated into English by Tess O'Dwyer, into Spanish by Manuel Broncano, and into Swedish by Helena Eriksson and Hannah Nordenhok.
Political activism
Political activism
Braschi is an advocate for Puerto Rican independence. She declared the independence of Puerto Rico in United States of Banana and stated in the press that "Liberty is not an option — it is a human right." In the 1990s, she protested the United States Navy's bombing exercises in Vieques, along with politicians Rubén Berríos and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., singers Danny Rivera and Willie Colón, and fellow authors Ana Lydia Vega and Rigoberta Menchú. Braschi spoke on a panel on "The New Censorship" at the PEN 2012 World Voices Festival where she offered "a critique of 21st century capitalism in which [she] condemned corporate censorship and control." In July 2019, Braschi led early marches outside La Fortaleza in Old San Juan to demand the resignation of Puerto Rican Governor Ricardo Rossello, and joined massive protests, with singers Bad Bunny, Residente, and Ricky Martin, that led to the Governor's resignation.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 1 entries
1953
Giannina Braschi born at San Juan.
Books
Putinoika, Brown Ink, Flowersong Press, 2024. Urbanismo ecológico en América Latina. Mohsen Mostafavi, Gareth Doherty, Marina Correia, Ana Maria Duran Calisto, and Luis Valenzuela (eds.). Editorial Gustavo Gili/Harvard University Graduate School of Design, 2019. ISBN 9788425229480. Two Crowns of The Egg, with Michael Somoroff, Donald Kuspit. ISBN 886208353X Estados Unidos de Banana, with Manuel Broncano, AmazonCrossing, Madrid, 2015. ISBN 978-1503934047 United States of Banana, AmazonCrossing, Seattle, 2011. ISBN 978-1611090673 Yo-Yo Boing!, AmazonCrossing, Seattle, 2011. Empire of Dreams, AmazonCrossing, Seattle, 2011. El imperio de los sueños, Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, 2000. Yo-Yo Boing!, Latin American Literary Review, Pittsburgh, 1998. Empire of Dreams (English translation by Tess O'Dwyer; Introduction by Alicia Ostriker), Yale University Press, New Haven/London, 1994. El imperio de los sueños, Anthropos Editorial del hombre, Barcelona, 1988. Libro de payasos y bufones, Grafica Uno, Giorgio Upiglio, Milan, 1987. La comedia profana, Anthropos Editorial del hombre, Barcelona, 1985. Asalto al tiempo, Ambitos Literarios, Barcelona, 1980.
Primary material
Documents and archives
reference work
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q452761: Giannina Braschi
Reputable secondary · Wikimedia Foundation
- “Giannina Braschi”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
scholarly publication
- The Poetry of Giannina Braschi:, Poets, Philosophers, Lovers, 2020
Scholarly · Crossref registry · 2020
Awards and honors
Angela Y. Davis Award, American Studies Association, 2024. Medalla Fray Luis de León de Poesía Iberoamericana (Ibero-American Poetry Medal), 2025 Enrique Anderson Imbert, North American Academy of the Spanish Language, 2022. Danforth Scholarship El Diario La Prensa's Outstanding Women of 1998 Ford Foundation Fellowship National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship Peter S. Reed Foundation/InterAmericas PEN American Center's Open Book Award Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña/grant
Scholarly works
"Breve tratado del poeta artista", Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, No. 433-36, 1986 (an essay on the poetry of Federico García Lorca). "La gravedad de la armonía en ‘Soledades galerías y otros pomas’ de Machado," Plural, 1983 (an essay on the poetry of Antonio Machado). "La poesía de Bécquer: El tiempo de los objetos o los espacios de la luz", Costa Amic, Mexico City, 1982 (a scholarly book on the poetry of Gustavo Adolfo Becquer). "La Metamorfosis del ingenio en la Égloga III de Garcilaso," Revista canadiense de estudios hispánicos, 1979 (an essay on Garcilaso's third eclogue). "Cinco personajes fugaces en el camino de Don Quijote", Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, No. 328, 1977 (an essay on Don Quixote by Cervantes).
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.PEN World Voices: Giannina Braschi. PEN America. 2012-08-09.
- 2.Aldama, Frederick Luis. Poets, Philosophers, Lovers: On the Writings of Giannina Braschi. upittpress.org.
- 3.Aldama, Frederick, and Christopher González. Latinx Studies: The Key Concepts. Routledge, 2018.
- 4.Perisic, Alexandra. Precarious Crossings: Immigration, Neoliberalism, and the Atlantic. The Ohio State University Press. 152–173. November 2020. 978-0-8142-5552-0.
- 5.Gonzalez, Christopher. Permissible Narratives: The Promise of Latino/a Literature. The Ohio State University Press. 93–95. 2017. 978-0-8142-5441-7.
- 6.Rivera, Carmen H. El poder de la palabra y la experiencia transnacional: una entrevista con Giannina Braschi. Op. Cit. Revista del Centro de Investigaciones Históricas. 20. 181–201. 2011. 2578-5443.
- 7.Remeseira, Claudio Iván. Summer reads: brilliant takes on Nuyoricans, random murder and narco-literatura. NBC Latino. August 25, 2013.
- 8.Braschi Family Biographies. Biographical Dictionary - s9.com. 2015-08-08.
- 9.Historical Society of the New York Courts. The Braschi Breakthrough: 30 Years Later, Looking Back on the Relationship Recognition Landmark. 12 September 2019.
- 10."Giannina Braschi Recibe Premio Literario," El Nuevo Día (2/11/25)
- 11.Sommer, Doris. Introduction to Yo-Yo Boing!. Latin American Literary Review Press. 1998. 978-0-935480-97-9.
- 12.Riofrio, John. Falling for debt: Giannina Braschi, the Latinx avant-garde, and financial terrorism in the United States of Banana. Latino Studies. SBN: 1476-3435. 66–81. January 28, 2020. 10.1057/s41276-019-00239-2.
- 13.Library of Congress. Giannina Braschi. National Book Festival. 2012.
- 14.Library of Congress. About Giannina Braschi: Book Fest 12. National Book Festival Transcript and Webcast. September 2012.
- 15.Johnson, Hannah. #BEA11: Books on Display, the Amazon Publishing Booth. Publishing Perspectives. May 26, 2011.
- 16.World Literature Today. About Giannina Braschi. September–October 2012.
- 17.Cruz-Malave, Arnaldo. Under the Skirt of Liberty: Giannina Braschi Rewrites Empire. American Quarterly. 66. 3. 801–818. September 1, 2014. 10.1353/aq.2014.0042.
- 18.Loustau, Laura. Cuerpos errantes: Literatura latina y latinoamericana en Estados Unidos (Luisa Valenzuela and Giannina Braschi). 2002.
- 19.Marting, Diane E. New/Nueva York in Giannina Braschi's "Poetic Egg": Fragile Identity, Postmodernism, and Globalization. The Global South. 4. 1. 167–182. 2010. 1932-8648.
- 20.Puga, Kristina. 8 Poets Disclose their Favorite Lines of Poetry (Nuyorican poet Giannina Braschi on Vallejo). NBC Latino. 2013-04-27.
- 21.Carrión, María. Geography, (M)Other Tongues and the Role of Translation in Giannina Braschi's El imperio de los sueños. Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature. 20. 1. 1996-01-01. 2334-4415.
- 22.Kuebler, Carolyn. Review of Empire of Dreams. Review of Contemporary Fiction. 15. 1.
- 23.Introduction to Giannina Braschi's Empire of Dreams, Alicia Ostriker, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994
- 24.Lengua Fresca, co-edited by Ilan Stavans and Harold Augenbraum
- 25.Foster, David William. Review of Yo-Yo Boing!. Review of Contemporary Fiction. 202–203. 1999.
- 26.Introduction to Giannina Braschi's Yo-Yo Boing!, Doris Sommer, Harvard University, 1998.
- 27.The Boston Globe, "Spanglish is everywhere now, which is no problema for some, but a pain in the cuello for purists", by Ilan Stavans, 14 September 2003.
- 28.Sheeran, Amy, and Amanda M. Smith. "A Graphic Revolution: Talking Poetry & Politics with Giannina Braschi." Chiricú Journal: Latina/o Literatures, Arts, and Cultures. 2.2 (2018): United States of 3-4.
- 29.Poets, Academy of American. About Giannina Braschi | Academy of American Poets. poets.org.
- 30.Gonzalez, Madelena. United States of Banana (2011), Elizabeth Costello (2003) and Fury (2001): Portrait of the Writer as the 'Bad Subject' of Globalisation. Études britanniques contemporaines. 46. 2014. 10.4000/ebc.1279.
- 31.Braschi, Giannina, "What to Read Now: Mixed-Genre Literature", World Literature Today, September–October 2012 http://www.worldliteraturetoday.com/2012/september/what-read-now-mixed-genre-literature-giannina-braschi
- 32.The Evergreen Review's 50th Anniversary Edition, (www.evergreenreview.com), Giannina Braschi, 2007.
- 33."Give me more Putinas, por favor: A Conversation with Giannina Braschi" by Sandra Guzmán, World Literature Today (9/24/2024)
- 34."Giannina Braschi Imagines New Worlds," El Nuevo Dia (10/20/24) https://www.elnuevodia.com/english/news/story/giannina-braschi-imagines-new-worlds-from-the-joy-of-absurdity/
- 35.La simulación y el artefacto: Putinoika como dispositivo de resistencia en la literatura contemporánea - Revista Siglo 22. December 21, 2024.
- 36."Putinoika Unbound," Latinx Pop Magazine (11/25/24)
- 37.Putinoika, Book Review by Miguel-Angel Zapata, Latino Book Review (11/30/2024)
- 38."Putinoika en Puerto Rico," ES Noticias. (11/15/24) https://esnoticiapr.com/giannina-braschi-presentara-putinoika-en-puerto-rico/
- 39.O'Dwyer, Tess. Popping Up in Pop Culture and Other Unlikely Spaces: Latinx Author Giannina Braschi Crosses Over World Literature Today, Spring 2021.
- 40.Somoroff, Michael. Two Crowns of the Egg. Lens Culture Magazine. Damiani.
- 41.United States of Banana: A Postcolonial Dramatic Fiction, Juan Pablo Felix, Columbia University Stages, New York, 2015
- 42.Lindengren, Joakim. Image from United States of Banana: A Comic Book, Cobolt, 2017. Chiricú Journal: Latina/o Literatures, Arts, and Cultures. 2. 2, 2018. 3–4. 2018. 10.2979/chiricu.2.2.02.
- 43.Bouche Caro, Gabriel. "Latinx Spaces: On Turning Giannina Braschi's Poetry into a Song Cycle," Spring 2021
- 44.New York State Writers Institute, The Conversation. "Stell designed this kinetic device to exist as a functional hybrid between typologies and named it after Giannina Braschi." December 7, 2020.
- 45.Poets, Academy of American. About Tess O'Dwyer | Academy of American Poets. poets.org.
- 46.Drömmarnas imperium.
- 47.Smith, Amanda M. A Graphic Revolution: Talking Poetry & Politics with Giannina Braschi. Chiricú Journal: Latina/o Literatures, Arts, and Cultures. 2. 130–142. Spring 2018. 10.2979/chiricu.2.2.10.
- 48.Puerto Rico: 'I Took Liberties' – World Policy.
- 49.Stanchich, Maritza. "Bilingual Big Bang: Giannina Braschi's Trilogy Levels the Spanish-English Playing Field". Poets, Philosophers, Lovers: On the Writings of Giannina Braschi. Frederick Luis Aldama, Ed. University of Pittsburgh Press. 2020. 9780822946182.
- 50.La libertad no es una opción, es un derecho. El Nuevo Dia. September 24, 2012.
- 51.The Puerto Rican Struggle and the Plight of Political Prisoner Oscar Lopez Rivera. TPQ.
- 52.Roth, Larry. Rushdie Brings PEN Festival to Close. The New York Times. May 7, 2012.
- 53.Figueroa, Jan Javier. Diferentes opiniones sobre manifestaciones en Fortaleza Las manifestaciones exigiendo la renuncia al gobernador, Ricardo Rosselló, continuarán mañana a las cinco de la tarde. El Vocero, Puerto Rican News. July 16, 2019.
- 54.Cortez Chico, Ricardo. Mobilized by Indignation: Demanding the Resignation of Governor Rossello. Front Page News Image. The Daily News of Puerto Rico. July 18, 2019.
- 55.Mostafavi, Mohsen. Ecological Urbanism in Latin America. Revista Brasileira de Gestão Urbana. 8. 1. 7–11. 2016. 2175-3369.
- 56.Somoroff, Michael. Two Crowns of the Egg by Giannina Braschi and Michael Somoroff. Damiani. 2014. 978-8862083539.
- 57.Mujeres Filósofas de América Latina. https://www.reddem.org/es/noticias/item/874-giannina-braschi-gan%C3%B3-el-premio-angela-davis.html
- 58."Giannina Braschi Recibe Premio Literario," El Nuevo Dia. (2/11/25)
- 59.Giannina Braschi Wins National Award from North American Academy of the Spanish Language. PR Newswire. 2022-04-29.
- 60.Association of Academies of the Spanish Language. https://www.asale.org/noticia/la-escritora-giannina-braschi-recibe-el-premio-enrique-anderson-imbert-2022-de-la-anle
Bibliography printed in the source article · 7
- Aldama, Frederick Luis, Ilan Stavans, and Tess O'Dwyer. (2020) Poets, Philosophers, Lovers: On the Writings of Giannina Braschi. U Pittsburgh.
- Gonzalez, Christopher. (2017) Permissible Narratives: The Promise of Latino/a Literature. The Ohio State University Press.
- Gonzales, Madelena and Laplace-Claverie, Helene, “Minority Theatre on the Global Stage: Challenging Paradigms from the Margins," Cambridge Scholars, Newcastle, England, page xix and pages 255–264, 2012.
- Marting, Diane E. (2010). "New/Nueva York in Giannina Braschi's 'Poetic Egg': Fragile Identity, Postmodernism, and Globalization." The Global South 4:1.
- Torres-Padilla, J.L. (2007). "When Hybridity Doesn't Resist: Giannina Braschi's Yo-Yo Boing! In Complicating Constructions: Race, Ethnicity, and Hybridity in American Texts. U. of Washington P. Eds. David S. Goldstein and Audrey B. Thacker, 290-307.
- Popovich, Ljudmila Mila (2010). "Metafictions, Migrations, Metalives: Narrative Innovations and Migrant Women’s Aesthetics in Giannina Braschi and Etel Adnan." International Journal of the Humanities 9:10. pp. 117–128.
- Zimmerman, Marc (2011). "Defending Their Own in the Cold: The Cultural Turns of U.S. Puerto Ricans", University of Illinois, Chicago
References
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scholarly publication
The Poetry of Giannina Braschi:, Poets, Philosophers, Lovers, 2020Crossref registry
Verifiedreference work
Wikidata, structured authority record Q452761: Giannina BraschiWikimedia Foundation
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