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Giannina Braschi

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United States of Banana Kindle Edition

by Giannina Braschi (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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Giannina Braschi explores the cultural and political journey of nearly 50 million Hispanic Americans living in the United States in this explosive new work of fiction, her first written in originally in English. United States of Banana takes place at the Statue of Liberty in post-9/11 New York City, where Hamlet, Zarathustra, and Giannina are on a quest to free the Puerto Rican prisoner Segismundo. Segismundo has been imprisoned for more than one hundred years, hidden away by his father, the king of the United States of Banana, for the crime of having been born. But when the king remarries, he frees his son, and for the sake of reconciliation, makes Puerto Rico the fifty-first state and grants American passports to all Latin American citizens. This staggering show of benevolence rocks the global community, causing an unexpected power shift with far-reaching implications. In a world struggling to realign itself in favor of liberty, United States of Banana is a force to be reckoned with in literature, art, and politics.

Print length

317 pages
Language

English
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On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

Amazon Crossing
Publication date

September 27, 2011
File size

1275 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Revolutionary in subject and form, United States of Banana is a beautifully written declaration of personal independence. Giannina Braschi’s take on U.S. relations with our southern neighbors in Latin America and the Caribbean, most especially Puerto Rico, is an eye-opener. The ire and irony make for an explosive combination and a very exciting read.” ―Barney Rosset, The Evergreen Review

“The best work of art on the subject of September 11th that I have ever experienced.” ―Mircea Cărtărescu, author of Nostalgia

“Good poets write great poems. Great poets create a new language. Giannina Braschi is a brilliant artist who has invented a syntax that reveals how we think, suffer, and take delight in the twenty-first century. Though the tone can be playful, her work has deep roots in the subversive side of classical literature. The scale is epic.” ―D.Nurkse, author of The Fall and The Border Kingdom

“A surge of deep emotion runs through anyone who listens to or reads Giannina Braschi because she writes the most compelling work―dramatic, philosophical, humorous and always unpredictable in its experimental form. Braschi enlightens us with her passionate energy.” ―Pia Tafdrup, author of Tarkovsky’s Horses and Other Poems

“Ideal to be read aloud in the corrosive style of Lenny Bruce, United States of Banana develops from the sophisticated intricacy of a Postmodern narrative…Challenging the fear and repression of dissent in the age of terror. The quintessential danse macabre of the millennium.” ―Daniela Daniele, Università degli Studi di Udine, Italy

“Experimental, revolutionary and profoundly philosophical, United States of Banana is to be read as The Waste Land of the 21st Century.” ―Cristina Garrigos, Texas A&M University

“Finally, someone takes identity politics and turns it irreverently on its head! Hilarious and sassy, Braschi offers no olive branch to those who stand by the rules of convention. Three cheers for this book!” ―Francine Masiello, University of California at Berkeley

About the Author

Adriana Sananes, was a member of Repertorio Español, NYC, for 10 years, specializing in Lorca and Spanish classical heroines. She is a past recipient of the Princess Grace Theatre Fellowship. Adriana has narrated several award winning documentaries and audiobooks in Spanish and English and is the 2010 AUDIE winner for “La Travesía de Enrique” by Pulitzer Prize winner Sonia Nazario.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Death of the Businessman

It’s the end of the world. I was excited by the whole situation. Well, if everybody is going to die, die hard, shit, but what do I know. Is this an atomic bomb—the end of the world—the end of the millennium? No more fear of being fired—for typos or tardiness—digressions or recessions—and what a way of being fired—bursting into flames—without two weeks notice—and without six months of unemployment—and without sick leave, vacation, or comp time—without a word of what was to come—on a glorious morning—when nature ran indifferent to the course of man—there came a point when that sunny sky turned into a hellhole of a night—with papers, computers, windows, bricks, bodies falling, and people running and screaming.

I saw a torso falling—no legs—no head—just a torso. I am redundant because I can’t believe what I saw. I saw a torso falling—no legs—no head—just a torso—tumbling in the air—dressed in a bright white shirt—the shirt of the businessman—tucked in—neatly—under the belt—snuggly fastened—holding up his pants that had no legs. He had hit a steel girder—and he was dead—dead for a ducat, dead—on the floor of Krispy Kreme—with powdered donuts for a head—fresh out of the oven—crispy and round—hot and tasty—and this businessman on the ground was clutching a briefcase in his hand—and on his finger, the wedding band. I suppose he thought his briefcase was his life—or his wife—or that both were one because the briefcase was as tight in hand as the wedding band.

...

When I came back to midtown a week after the attack—I mourned—but not in a personal way—it was a cosmic mourning—something that I could not specify because I didn’t know any of the dead. I felt grief without knowing its origin. Maybe it was the grief of being an immigrant and of not having roots. Not being able to participate in the whole affair as a family member but as a foreigner, as a stranger—estranged in myself and confused—I saw the windows of Bergdorf and Saks—what a theater of the unexpected—my mother would have cried—there were only black curtains, black drapes—showing the mourning of the stores—no mannequins, just veils—black veils.

When the mannequins appeared again weeks later—none of them had blond hair. I don’t know if it was because of the mourning rituals or whether the mannequins were afraid to be blond—targets of terrorists. Even they didn’t want to look American. They were out of fashion after the Twin Towers fell. To the point, that even though I had just dyed my hair blond because I was writing Hamlet and Hamlet is blond, I went back to my coiffeur immediately and told him—dye my hair black. It was a matter of life and death, why look like an American. When naturally I look like an Arab and walk like an Egyptian.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B004S7KBOG
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Amazon Crossing (September 27, 2011)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 27, 2011
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1275 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 317 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #732,574 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #78 in Spanish Literature
- #1,121 in Humorous Literary Fiction
- #1,453 in Hispanic American Literature & Fiction

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Giannina Braschi

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PEN World Voices Festival named Giannina Braschi "one of the most revolutionary voices in Latin America today."

She wrote the postmodern poetry classic EMPIRE OF DREAMS and the Spanglish tour de force novel YO-YO BOING! The Associated Press praised Braschi's explosive new book UNITED STATES OF BANANA as a work of unlimited imagination and fearless language. Writing in Spanish, Spanglish, and English, Braschi explores the cultural and linguistic journey of millions of Hispanic immigrants to the USA and challenges the three politic options of her native Puerto Rico--Nation, Colony or State.

Giannina Braschi was a singer, tennis champion, and fashion model during her teen years in San Juan, before discovering literature as her calling.

With a Ph.D. in Golden Age Spanish Literature from the State University of New York-Stony Brook, she has written books and essays on the great Spanish poets Cervantes, Becquer, Garcilaso, Lorca, and Machado. She has won grant and awards from National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, Ford Foundation, Danforth Scholarship, InterAmericas, Reed Foundations, Rutgers University, Puerto Rican Institute of Culture, and PEN American Center. She has also served as judge for the PEN book awards. Her collected poetry in English translation inaugurated the Yale Library of World Literature.

http://gianninabraschi.wordpress.com/about/

Contact: gbraschi@verizon.net

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4 out of 5

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Yma Johnson

United States of Banana

Reviewed in the United States on December 28, 2014

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Giannina Braschi’s United States of Banana puts genre in a blender and pours it with seamless liquidity into a novel of exceptional innovation. Set in post-9/11 New York, the book follows Hamlet, Zarathustra, and Giannina as they set out to free Puerto Rican captive Segismundo from the dungeon of the Statue of Liberty where he has been imprisoned by the king of the United States of Banana for one hundred years. The king remarries, releases Segismundo, and as a conciliatory gesture, offers passports to all Latin American citizens. An act of benevolence which upends the global power paradigm and reverberates through the international community with destabilizing effects.
United States of Banana is a hybrid work, mixing post-modern fiction, play format, sociopolitical commentary, and stretches of prose with an evocative carousel of language and philosophical ruminations. It is an English language and literature lover’s dream! Cliché is (or should be) the bain of every writer. In Braschi’s hands cliché becomes critique which repeats and accretes with such intensity that it acquires depth and sinister implications greatly in excess of its daily use. Running around like a chicken with its head cut off catapults the reader into stinging indictments of capitalism and its injurious effects on well … everybody.
“…home is in the head – (but the head is cut off) – and the nest is full of banking forms and Easter eggs with coins inside. Beheaded chickens, how do you breed chickens with their heads cut off? By teaching them to bankrupt creativity.”
Braschi plays clever havoc with the language around Puerto Rico’s status as a protectorate (de facto colony) of the United States. The statuses are referred to as Wishy, Wishy-Washy, and Washy, independence, protectorate, and statehood respectively. She engages with the question in many ways, but arguably the most unique approach comes from dialogue sequences in play format. My favorite conversation is between Cuba, The Statue of Liberty, Argentina, Puerto Rico, and the United States of Banana during a meeting at the United Nations. Fiction fans who are interested in Latin America and its complex political relationships with the United States must read this.
Then there are the places where Braschi eviscerates language and reconstitutes so it is recognizable but released from its moorings. For example, a skull becomes a “prop for glasses.” Or, “I always fulfill my deadlines because they are the lines of death, and I can never skip what was meant to die by deadline. And that is my goal. To die when I get to the deadline.” The magic is as much in what is written as what is held back or implied. United States of Banana is a galloping romp through semantic fields and an invigorating contribution to postmodernism that never loses its sense of irony or humor.

7 people found this helpful

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Jack

Love this Author

Reviewed in the United States on April 16, 2020

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United States of Banana is a reflection of postmodern literature. The book discusses the decline of the American Empire after the collapse of the Twin Towers following the terrorist attack in New York City on September 11, 2001. It is a cross-genre work comprised of theatre, fiction, drama, prose poetry, and political philosophy. This edgy work is oddly humorous in a dark way and surprisingly funny during the most serious parts. Braschi’s philosophic texts run parallel to modern thinkers like Byung-Chul Han, Anne Carson, Paul Virilio, Alain Badiou, Noam Chomsky, and Judith Butler. Her fiction compares to other challenging postmodern writers such as David Foster Wallace, Kathy Acker, Roberto Bolano, and Mary Camponegro. This is thought-provoking Latinx literature that is both experimental in style and form. Great read!

One person found this helpful

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Richard

Three Stars

Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2016

uhm.. cant even talk about how difficult this book is.

Reviewed in the United States on December 27, 2011

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Had read several reviews on it and want to read it. The cover is very fragil, but expect the contents to be good. Thanks. Prompt delivery7

Reviewed in the United States on December 27, 2018

Good condition book

paperback fallng apart

Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2023

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Really good book but the pages are literally falling apart and coming out of the book. No ripping or anything just the binding is failing like a week after I bought it.

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Overbee

For heady readers of political philosophy

Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2024

Brilliant tragicomedy about the fall of the US empire. There is also an eponymous comic book version based on a section of this epic which focuses on the collapse of the World Trade Center and the liberation of Puerto Rico. But this edition is the full work. "Braschi rewrite(s) radical politics as high art,” said one critic. Another at Library Journal said “Recommended for fans of philosophical fiction such as Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra.” In other words, it's for very heady readers.

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J. Avellanet

Plotless, Repetitive and Self-Absorbed

Reviewed in the United States on November 26, 2011

Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )

I spent a month thinking about how to write this review. I appreciate that Ms. Braschi spent significant time writing this book; having written a book myself, I know the work involved. Unfortunately, I think the United States of Banana needed a lot more work before it was ready for publication.

The protagonist of the book is focused on her feelings and what she's going through as representative for what others have gone through when it comes to the 9-11 attacks in the US and the post-9-11 world. Given the constant media attention to 9-11, the fallacy of the single superpower, etc., the center of the book's attention simply adds one more cup of self-reflection and well-trod insight into an already overflowing bucket of memories, books, stories, blog entries, analyses, ad nauseum. Ultimately, after about 50-70 pages or so, the reader "gets it." Unfortunately, one still has another 300+ pages to slog through.

The first third of the book is written almost as a journal or even a stream-of-consciousness flow broken apart into chapters. The next two-thirds of the book are written as a script in a play with dialogue between Hamlet, Segismundo, the author, and several other characters. Much of the book focuses on how power has shifted in a post-9-11 world and the realization that all men are not created equal. Really? This is news? Perhaps to the author just now peeking out from her ivory tower, but to the rest of us, we are more than a decade on from 9-11. Yes, Virginia, there really is a new global landscape. Yes, Thomas Jefferson was writing idealistically when he penned that "All men are created equal." And you do realize that he actually meant "All white, anglo-saxon, property-owning men are created equal?" It was just tightened up a bit by the Founding Fathers.

Braschi's book is supposed to be allegorical (*Note: if you are not sure what "allegorical" means, this is NOT the book for you - stop reading this review and go on to something else). Sadly, I found myself skimming the text wondering when something would actually happen, when the book would pick up, and to what end. The author's attempts to bring in aspects of Shakespeare's Hamlet and then herself as a character in a meta-fiction like the great Mist: A Tragicomic Novel only demonstrate how this book (I hesitate to say "story" as that implies a plot) simply suffers in comparison.

There is a LOT better fare out there, whether your interests run to meta-fiction (see Mist: A Tragicomic Novel ), a discussion of the lessons learned and feelings felt from 9-11 (see Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close MTI: A Novel or Don DeLillo's Falling Man: A Novel ), or to the Puerto Rican experience in NYC and the US (see almost anything from Ed Vega such as No Matter How Much You Promise to Cook or Pay the Rent You Blew It Cauze Bill Bailey Ain't Never Coming Home Again; A Symphonic Novel or Lamentable Journey of Omaha Bigelow Into the Impenetrable Loisaida Jungle: A Novel ). If Braschi's book still perks your interest, then wait for it in the bargain bin. You won't have a long wait.

8 people found this helpful

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Antônio

Lindo e fugaz

Reviewed in Brazil on May 17, 2022

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Mas com certeza não é para todos.

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Stephanie Jane (Literary Flits)

A challenging read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 1, 2022

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I had already gathered from other reviewers that United States Of Banana was going to be a challenging read and I can certainly concur on that point. While I did enjoy aspects of this undeniably original and unique work, other parts left me struggling to keep up with what was going on or just left me standing, bewildered, in Giannina Braschi's wake.

The book is written partly in a first person monologue and partly as a play between disparate characters including Hamlet, Zarathustra and the Statue of Liberty. I found I got the most out of the monologues, several of which I thought were politically incisive and deftly portrayed concepts with which I either wholeheartedly agreed or which I had not previously considered so a lot of United States Of Banana did give me food for thought.

Where I lost the connection however was where I had no knowledge of the characters the fictional Giannina was interacting with. I have seen pictures of the Statue of Liberty and a production of Shakespeare's Hamlet, but Zarathustra and Segismundo were completely new names to me so I feel I needed to have familiarised myself with their stories before attempting to understand how they fitted into United States Of Banana. The same was true of the ancient Greek philosophers who joined the cast in later chapters. I knew of Socrates and his ideas, but not in sufficient detail and knew pretty much nothing at all of the others. This meant that many of the connections and allusions that are essential to understanding Braschi's ideas sadly sailed straight over my head.

On a positive note, I am now keen to remedy these gaps in my knowledge so recommendations of other books, particularly those exploring and explaining Segismundo and Zarathustra will be gratefully received. I'm planning to keep my copy of United States Of Banana, rather than deleting it as I usually do with read books, and giving it another go in due course. There was enough to grip me in the parts I did understand, that I want to have a similar engagement with the whole book.

John M

A book for a very niche audience!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 12, 2011

Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )

I selected this book because I thought the cover blurb was intriguing.
However I didn't last long. After a couple of chapters I decided that this wasn't for me. I was hoping for a readable satirical novel, but couldn't relate to the style at all. It is written in a surreal style that will only appeal to a minority audience. I flicked ahead and saw that throughout the book further unreadable weirdness awaited.
Maybe this work does have a deep artistic and intellectual merit. However, if so, it is completely lost on me.
Beware - this is not a work that will appeal to mainstream novel reader.

2 people found this helpful

Dom X

Much ado about nothing...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 25, 2011

Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )

Though wary of anything whose main descriptor is 'cutting edge' I thought I'd give this a spin.
The release of prisoner Segismundo, who has languished in prison for a hundred years has unexpectedly seismic implications for the very notion of liberty, and poet and novelist Giannina Braschi uses this fantasy to explore a post 9/11 world and the fracturing of America as it struggles to incorporate a huge influx of Latin American people and culture.

Or at least I think she does...

However, the ideas of this novel are to me subsumed in an infuriatingly eliptical style that seems obsessed with its own cleverness where each sentence is a post-modern parlour game. An example;

'Who would you betray?'
'I would betray none, except I would betray you for betraying me by asking me to betray'

These caprices can be fun and playful, but on every line? on every page?
Pretty soon my overiding reaction was 'KNOCK IT OFF!!'

This allegorical style and delight in unconventional prose can be a wonder when in the hands of a Pynchon or Rushdie, but here, just like a film who's shaky camerawork is meant to convey 'energy' and 'disorientation' but in fact just makes you sea-sick, this book becomes tiresome pretty quickly.

Or maybe I'm just not clever enough, and find myself getting annoyed by someone who seems to be just showing off how clever THEY are.

Whatever, the novelist's attempt to mesh the narrative with that of Hamlet is telling.Now there was an author with great ideas, with an extraordinary and inventive grasp of language.

I shall have to content myself with being clever enough to enjoy that!

2 people found this helpful

JoMaynard

Don't be deceived

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 15, 2011

Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )

This is a Latin American arty type book. Unfortunately I ordered it because the blurb and cover made me think it was going to be rather more fun and less weighty than it is.
The first half of the book has a series of accounts of September 11th, these are graphic and harrowing, and should come with a health warning. Especially for people like my husband who were there. I do wonder if the Author really was, or maybe its just different ways of dealing with tragedy between the Anglo-Saxon and Latin American.
The second half is a script, between the Author and Characters including the Statue of Liberty. I have to admit I didn't make it very far, as I had already lost the will to go further in the first half.
If you don't like realism, and do like this kind of heavy literature, you may like it. I didn't.

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