My Body Is Paper

＂This blazing collection of unpublished stories and poems by Cuadros (1962-1996; City of God) portrays queer Chicano beauty and resilience during the AIDS epidemic. . . . This is a welcome tribute to a writer who was cut short in his prime.＂--Publishers Weekly

＂Without doubt one of the sexiest and most important writers I’ve ever read.＂--Justin Torres, author of Blackouts

＂My Body Is Paper is a testament to the unrelenting literary magic of Gil Cuadros. Through poetry and prose, Cuadros holds a mirror up to California, reflecting this land of dualities back at us. He gives us sunshine and sickness, ecstasy and drudgery, eros and death. I am so very grateful for his work.＂--Myriam Gurba, author of Creep: Accusations and Confessions

Since City of God (1994) by Gil Cuadros was published 30 years ago, it has become an unlikely classic (an ＂essential book of Los Angeles＂ according to the LA Times), touching readers and writers who find in his work a singular evocation of Chicanx life in Los Angeles during and leading up to the AIDS epidemic, which took his life in 1996. Little did we know, Cuadros continued writing exuberant prose and poems in the period between his one published book and his untimely death at the age of 34. This recently discovered treasure, My Body Is Paper, is a stunning portrait of sex, family, religion, culture of origin, and the betrayals of the body. Tender and blistering, erotic and spiritual--Cuadros dives into these complexities which we grapple with today, showing us how to survive these times, and beyond.

AUTHOR

Gil Cuadros (1962-1996) was a groundbreaking gay Latino writer whose work explored the intersections of sexuality, race, and spirituality. Diagnosed as HIV positive in 1987, Cuadros channeled his experiences into his acclaimed collection, City of God (published by City Lights in 1994), which captured the raw emotions of living with a life-threatening illness. His lyrical intensity and unflinching honesty shined a light on marginalized communities and familial expectations. The book was highly acclaimed when it was first published and captured the attention of prominent writers in the literary community, among them Paul Monette, Eloise Klein Healy, and Wanda Coleman. It has gained a growing readership over the years. Cuadros was a resident of West Hollywood when he died at the age of thirty-four.

EDITORS

Pablo Alvarez is a first-generation Chicanx from Pico Rivera, California. His scholarship and research are grounded in activism and collaborations that unearth the legacies of Latinx and Chicanx AIDS queer ancestry through literature, photography, documentary, and film. He holds a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies and is an assistant professor in Women and Gender Studies and Queer Studies at California State University, Fullerton. His work has been included in Final Transmission: Performance Art and AIDS in Los Angeles; AIDS and The Distribution of Crises; and Queer in Aztlán: Chicano Male Recollections of Consciousness and Coming Out. He is a participant at Writers at Work, Los Angeles, and is committed to archiving stories of the impact of AIDS in Los Angeles.

Kevin J. Martin is the executor of the Estate of Gil Cuadros. He has had a long career as a copy editor and writer. Currently, he serves as Senior Writer and Associate Editor for MagellanTV, where he writes on various topics related to art and culture. My Body Is Paper is the first book he has co-edited. He resides in Glendale, California.

Rafael Pérez-Torres works for the English Department at UCLA and writes on contemporary U.S. culture as it intersects with the social formations of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. He is particularly interested in contemporary Latinx cultural production and theories of decoloniality and late capitalism. He is author of Movements in Chicano Poetry: Against Myths, Against Margins, Memories of an East L.A. Outlaw: To Alcatraz, Death Row and Back, co-written with Ernie López, Critical Mestizaje: Voice, Agency and Race in Chicano Literature and Culture, and co-editor of The Chicano Studies Reader: An Anthology of Aztlán 1970-2019. He most recently served as president of the Latina/o Studies Association and continues to serve on numerous editorial boards for academic journals and publishing houses. He lives in Santa Barbara, CA.

Terry Wolverton is the author of eleven books of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction, including Insurgent Muse: Life and Art at the Woman’s Building (City Lights, 2002), a memoir that received the Judy Grahn Award for Nonfiction from Publishing Triangle; Embers, and the poetry collection RUIN PORN. Her twelfth title, Season of Eclipse, a novel, is forthcoming from Bella Books. She has edited fifteen literary compilations, including three volumes each of the Lambda Award winning His: brilliant new fiction by gay writers and Hers: brilliant new fiction by lesbians and lives in Los Angeles, CA.

FOREWORD BY

Justin Torres is the author of We the Animals, which won the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, was translated into fifteen languages and adapted into a feature film, and The Blackouts, forthcoming from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. He was named a National Book Foundation ＂5 Under 35,＂ a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, and a Cullman Center Fellow at the New York Public Library. His short fiction and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Granta, Tin House, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times Image Magazine, and Best American Essays. He teaches at UCLA and lives in Los Angeles, CA.