Tentacle

Rita Indiana author Achy Obejas translator

Format:Paperback

Publisher:And Other Stories

Published:15th Nov '18

Should be back in stock very soon

Tentacle cover

Winner of the 2017 Grand Prize of the Association of Caribbean Writers

Longlisted for the 2020 Best Translated Book Award

Plucked from her life on the streets of post-apocalyptic Santo Domingo, young maid Acilde Figueroa finds herself at the heart of a Santería prophecy: only she can travel back in time and save the ocean – and humanity – from disaster. But first she must become the man she always was – with the help of a sacred anemone. Tentacle is an electric novel with a big appetite and a brave vision, plunging headfirst into questions of climate change, technology, Yoruba ritual, queer politics, poverty, sex, colonialism and contemporary art. Bursting with punk energy and lyricism, it’s a restless, addictive trip: The Tempest meets the telenovela.

'Tentacle is as strange and beautiful a sea-change as its epigraph from The Tempest suggests … Achy Obejas brings the volume to English language readers with a social burja-cyborg flare - at once witchy, almost shamanisitically intuitive about the nature of language, and yet precise.’ Alexandra Marraccini, Times Literary Supplement

'Where to begin? Rita Indiana’s Tentacle has the settings, themes, and expansiveness of a much larger book, but it blends that ambition with a host of irreverence (along with some nods to the music of Giorgio Moroder, which is never a bad thing). It’s a time-travel story, a meditation on gender and sexuality, and an art-world satire—as well as, arguably, a satire of ‘chosen one’ narrative tropes. To say that this is unlike anything else you’ll read this year is probably stating the obvious.' Words Without Borders January Watchlist by Tobias Carroll

‘Alcide is a queer world unto himself. He travels through the history of the Dominican Republic, revealing its queer foundations while challenging the notion that time and space are static, unchanging categories.’ Alexandra Gonzenbach Perkins, Wasafiri

'From beginning to end, Tentacle is a strange, unnerving, and at times beautiful book that critiques global inequality and the politicization of climate change.' Amy Brady, Chicago Review of Books

  • Winner of Grand Prize of the Association of Caribbean Writers 2017

ISBN: 9781911508342

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 165g

160 pages