{"id":43295,"date":"2025-11-25T23:03:35","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T05:03:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/book_review\/putinoika-by-giannina-braschi\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T10:37:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T16:37:05","slug":"putinoika-by-giannina-braschi","status":"publish","type":"book_review","link":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/rese\u00f1as\/putinoika-by-giannina-braschi\/","title":{"rendered":"Putinoika by Giannina Braschi"},"content":{"rendered":"

McEllen: <\/b>Brown Ink, FlowerSong Press. 2024. 294 pages.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

\"\"On September 25, 2024, in NYU\u2019s King Juan Carlos Center, Puerto Rican author Giannina Braschi began her book tour for her latest project, <\/span>Putinoika. <\/span><\/i>She read a scene from the dramatic section \u201cBacchae\u201d to a packed house, captivated by her frenetic narrative and charismatic delivery. Characters popped in-and-out without introduction or explanation, ignoring time and space. <\/span>Her performance, like her entire oeuvre, reminded me of West African griots who used storytelling to record the past, present, and future. To witness a modern-day griot firsthand fueled a spontaneous desire to create: I wanted to go home and write poetry right at that moment.<\/span> I experienced that same rush when I read the novel.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is the impulse that rises from reading <\/span>Putinoika<\/span><\/i>: it encourages creation amidst ruination. This is evident in the opening chapter, \u201cPalinode,\u201d when the character Giannina explains how the Greek legend Medea \u201ccorrected her destruction with creation.\u201d Similarly, Antigone follows the path of creation, drawing from her tumultuous history to find a second wind and craft a new narrative identity that transforms her into a \u201cdrama of herself in two parts: Anti and Gone.\u201d <\/span>Putinoika <\/span><\/i>gives Antigone the opportunity to break old patterns, devise her own reality, tell her own story as she sees fit\u2014an announcement directed to all the book\u2019s readers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Putinoika <\/span><\/i>is avant-garde in its approach. The mixed-genre aesthetics build upon Braschi\u2019s previous explorations of nonlinear time, mythmaking, and resistance to fixed definitions, as seen in <\/span>United States of Banana (2011), Yo-Yo Boing! (1998),<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>El imperio de los sue\u00f1os<\/span><\/i>\/<\/span>Empire of Dreams (1988)<\/span><\/i>. Braschi\u2019s writing is famously difficult to classify. <\/span>Latin American Literature Today\u2019s <\/span><\/i>Dossier: Giannina Braschi<\/span><\/a> cited a string of identifiers such as \u201ca Nuyorican poet, a Latinx philosopher, a postmodern novelist, a social satirist, a magical realist, a feminist, a post-dramatic playwright, etc.\u201d and her work with frequently associated terms such as \u201cSpanglish, transnational, speculative fiction, hysterical realism, McOndo, and Post-Boom.\u201d Her self-identification as a soothsayer serves to name and situate herself and her work within the literary canon on her own terms. This is reflected artistically and comically throughout <\/span>Putinoika<\/span><\/i>, particularly when the book personifies and speaks for itself, insisting that \u201ceverybody is talking about\u201d it, and that it wants to \u201ctalk for itself.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Straddling between an epic poem and a theater play, <\/span>Putinoika<\/span><\/i> echoes Greek classics, such as Aeschylus\u2019s <\/span>Oresteia<\/span><\/i>, Homer\u2019s <\/span>Iliad<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Odyssey<\/span><\/i>, Sophocles\u2019 Theban Plays, and several of Euripides\u2019 tragedies, most notably <\/span>Bacchae<\/span><\/i>. However, Braschi liberates the allusions from their canonical constraints. Agamemnon, Creon, Oedipus, Eurydice, Teiresias, Antigone, and Bacchus and his muses converse with a diverse array of figures\u2014from Euripides and El Greco to Maria Callas, Trump (\u201cPendejo\u201d) and his agents, Vladimir Putin and his Putinas\u2014Ivana, Ivanka, and Melania\u2014as well as personifying concepts such as Frenzy, Covid-19, and the Economy. <\/span>These interactions occur during the Trump and Putin era, marked by collusion, delusion, and pollution. As the world transforms under the weight of frenzy and disease<\/span>, <\/span><\/i>Braschi interrogates how these contemporary crises, figures, and forces intersect with myths and archetypes. Through these dialogues, <\/span>Putinoika<\/span><\/i> provides a sense of hope, empowering readers to shape their own meaning from the chaos and uncertainty around them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs the world transforms under the weight of frenzy and disease, Braschi interrogates how these contemporary crises, figures, and forces intersect with myths and archetypes.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Braschi does not identify as a storyteller nor as a griot, but rather as a soothsayer: \u201cWe don\u2019t need storytellers. We need soothsayers. I never said I am a storyteller. I said I am a soothsayer. I say the sooth.\u201d\u00a0 She further notes, \u201cThey think it\u2019s all about the storytelling. But I say it\u2019s about the geometry and architecture,\u201d highlighting that <\/span>Putinoika <\/span><\/i>is not only concerned with the narrative but also with the shapes, patterns, and structures of radical thinking that constitute it. By asserting that she is a soothsayer, Braschi is doing what she wants her readers to do: to seek truth while imagining a future. However, the very act of rejecting the role of storyteller and donning the veil of soothsayer is a storytelling gesture in itself\u2014one of creation and re-categorization.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While affirming the power of prophesy, <\/span>Putinoika<\/span><\/i> also speaks to the unreliability of prophets and seers. The blind prophet Tiresias, who claims to have founded \u201cfate news,\u201d employs fear to create fake news so that he can orchestrate the destinies of Creon and Oedipus. It is fate news that returns Creon to the Theban throne and assists in the banishment of a blind Oedipus. Tiresias wields tall tales to determine fate. For him, seeing the future is about creating it in his own image or for the image of a ruler. For the seer Cassandra, foresight entails that every time she gives a prophecy, no one believes her. It means her imprisonment, servitude to Agamemnon, and death by Clytemnestra. However, in <\/span>Putinoika,<\/span><\/i> Cassandra is liberated from the curse of seeing and not being believed. Cassandra is not only believed, but beloved by the multitudes. The character Giannina, in turn, is a seer for the voiceless, who cares for the past and is concerned with securing a truly inclusive future. Her soothsaying is an avenue towards hope, love, and creation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The essence of Braschi\u2019s soothsaying is an invitation to name things for oneself, to create one\u2019s own interpretations, to produce new stories and, with them, new outcomes. Braschi refuses to give her audience a singular, authorized version of anything. Instead, she leaves spaces within the liminal for the reader to participate in the generative process of mythmaking. She invites her readers to be soothsayers. In this way, <\/span>Putinoika <\/span><\/i>is a project of empowerment, encouraging readers to embrace the uncertainty, to resist fixed definitions, and to take ownership of the narratives that shape their lives. This challenging and entertaining book reminds us of the profound importance of questioning, of acknowledging our stories, and of engaging with our past to create a deeper, more meaningful future. These actions, according to <\/span>Putinoika<\/span><\/i>, offer a path toward greater awareness\u2014a journey, as Giannina\u2019s character observes of Antigone and Electra, toward \u201cthinking free and new.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cPutinoika gives Antigone the opportunity to break old patterns, devise her own reality, tell her own story as she sees fit\u2014an announcement directed to all the book\u2019s readers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":43294,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"categories":[],"tags":[5563],"editors":[],"review_sections":[2043],"reviewers":[5576],"translator":[],"editors_pick":[],"lal_author":[],"class_list":["post-43295","book_review","type-book_review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-numero-36","review_sections-ficcion","reviewers-jonathan-b-toro"],"acf":{"richtitle":"Putinoika<\/i> by Giannina Braschi","reviewers":"","title_field":"Putinoika by Giannina Braschi","issueofarticle":43245,"sidebartitle":"","thumbnail":"","collection-articleimage":null},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book_review\/43295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book_review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/book_review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book_review\/43295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43311,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book_review\/43295\/revisions\/43311"}],"acf:post":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue\/43245"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43295"},{"taxonomy":"editors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/editors?post=43295"},{"taxonomy":"review_sections","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review_sections?post=43295"},{"taxonomy":"reviewers","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reviewers?post=43295"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/translator?post=43295"},{"taxonomy":"editors_pick","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/editors_pick?post=43295"},{"taxonomy":"lal_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/lal_author?post=43295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}