Decolonial Topophilia

"In this consistently insightful, well-researched, and well-written study of four major Puerto Rican poets of the early twentieth century, Víctor Figueroa convincingly demonstrates in his words, 'how a single island's history and ultimate destiny is inextricably entangled with global histories and planetary hopes for liberation—a liberation that must . . . [include] the well-being of both human beings and their other-than-human places and companions.' Such a study of Puerto Rico is long overdue for the insights the island's literature can offer to the environmental humanities. Decolonial Topophilia is smart, clear, and important scholarship that advances our understanding of the complexities and risks of what it means to love a place even as it rightly insists on its indispensability for the future." - George B. Handley, coeditor of Postcolonial Ecologies: Literatures of the Environment

"Decolonial Topophilia is a rich and timely intervention into the overlapping fields of Caribbean literary studies, environmental humanities, and decolonial thought. Víctor Figueroa offers a compelling account of how such Puerto Rican poets as Lloréns, De Burgos, Palés Matos, and Corretjer register—and contest—the transformation of land, labor, and life under colonial modernity. What emerges is a nuanced reading of nature not as scenery, but as a site where the violences of empire, the logics of capital, and the affective attachments to place converge. By placing these poets in dialogue with broader ecological and theoretical debates, Figueroa repositions Puerto Rican literature within urgent conversations about environmental crisis, colonialism, and the cultural meanings of place. This is a critical intervention that will resonate across disciplines." - Jason Cortés, author of Macho Ethics: Masculinity and Self-Representation in Latino-Caribbean Narrative (Bucknell)