rosa44's reviews
223 reviews

"Why don’t I feel more at home in English? How is it that the language I learned to read and write in doesn’t comfort me? What happened, and what does it mean? The estrangement, the disenchantment confuses, disturbs me. Ifeel more than ever that I am a writer without a definitive language, without origin, without definition. Whether it’s an advantage or a disadvantage I wouldn’t know."

"In America, although I speak English like a native, although I’m considered an American writer, I meet the same wall but for different reasons. Every so often, because of my name, and my appearance, someone asks me why I chose to write in English rather than in my native language. Those who meet me for the first time—when they see me, then learn my name, then hear theway I speak English—ask me where I’m from. I have to justify the language I speak in, even though I know it perfectly. If I don’t speak, even manyAmericans think I’m a foreigner."

"It’s a book of memory, full of metaphors. It recounts a search, a victory, a continual defeat. Childhood and adulthood, an evolution, maybe a revolution.It’s a book of love, of suffering. It recounts a new independence together with a new dependence. A collaboration, and also a state of solitude.Unlike my other books, this one is rooted in my real, lived experiences.Apart from two stories, it’s not a work of imagination. I consider it a sort of linguistic autobiography, a self-portrait."

—"¿No has soñado nunca que tenías un amigo, Alec? Nada más que eso, «miamigo», que él procuraba ayudarte a ti y tú a él, un amigo —repitió, poniéndosesentimental súbitamente—. Alguien a quien entregar tu vida entera y que te entregaratambién la suya. Supongo que algo así no puede suceder fuera de los sueños."

"Porque no se puede volver atrás, el tiempo viene y todo crece, y después de crecerviene la muerte. Pero para atrás no se puede andar." 

"Una tristeza oscura la llena y piensa: «¿Por qué yo, y no otra? Alguien tiene que pasar estas cosas, pero ¿por qué yo?». 

"Corre atropellando todo, sale a la lluvia, cruza la mañana y los charcos, entra porel monte y las ramas y al llegar al fondo se abraza al tronco de un árbol, se deja caer y se muerde los puños, y gime, la cara contra la corteza de terciopelo húmedo, gimecomo si ladrara, como si el gemir le despellejara los huesos, como si el alma saliera tal vez por sus gemidos y echara afuera la desgracia. Con los dedos ara el tronco y desprende pedazos de musgo olorosos a lluvia."

A mí  no me molesta las idas y venidas en el tiempo como he visto que se señala en otras reseñas: es propio de la memoria y los recuerdos...y de hilvanar los recuerdos pertinentes. 

Tampoco le reprocho a la autora el no poder o querer profundizar sobre los momentos de abuso que sufrió. Es muy difícil verbalizar algunas cuestiones...que haya contado esas situaciones ya es mucho. La falta de reflexión sobre lo sucedido es una señal de todo el dolor y el trauma vivido me parece.


"There are an infinite number of ways to be queer and trans, and my story speaks to only one. As I say later in these pages, we are all but a speck in this universe, and I hopethat in speaking my truth I have added yet another speck to dispel the constant misinformation around queer and trans lives. If you haven’t already, I urge you to seek out many other vast and varying narratives fromLGBTQ+ writers, activists, and individuals. The movement for transliberation affects us all. We all experience gender joyfully and oppressively in different ways." 

"This world has many ends and beginnings
 A cycle ends, will something remain?
 Maybe a spark, once so bright will bloom again".
 —BEVERLY GLENN-COPELAND,“A SONG AND MANY MOONS” 

"It was the first time bonded with someone so fiercely who understood a particular shame. We spoke of similarities in our childhoods, families, unrequited loves,hometowns, and although we were part of different systems, something about our upbringings connected us, a roundedness and similar suffering. It was as if we entered a field of pain, yes, but also one of camaraderie and healing. Something altered for me in that time, knowing him. I felt supported and seen, I could put my guard down, relax, here was a true friend." 

"I wish I could bottle this, I thought. I felt the quiet pain that comes with being in love, the risk of it all. "

 "It was that moment I felt I would never hear what I yearned for, an understanding, or atleast an explanation. Something. It would take me years to finally speak." 

“Why do I feel this way?” I’d plead. “What is this feeling that never goes away? How can I be desperately uncomfortable all the time? How can I have this life and be in such pain?”