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Acknowledgments
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Acknowledgments Writing and revising this manuscript was approximately an eight-year enterprise, which spanned various important phases of my life. I have accumulated many debts of gratitude in this time. From my New York City life, I would like to thank Jean Franco for her brilliant and generous guidance, without which this manuscript would have never happened. I owe to Maryse Condé the unexpected introduction of the Caribbean into my life; much of my present understanding of the Caribbean originates in conversations with or readings suggested by her. I would like to thank Ursula Heise for helping me navigate the intricate ways of the Comparative Literature Program at Columbia University, and for being truly inspiring. Her thoroughness and incisiveness have been an example I only aspire to approximate. I would like to thank Gustavo Pérez Firmat, Licia Fiol-Matta, Gerard Aching, José Quiroga, and Sylvia Molloy for having read parts of this project. Their comments have helped redefine the focus and the scope of this study. From the Wisconsin section of my life, I would like to thank Ksenija Bilbija, Alda Blanco, Juan F. Egea, and Luís Madureira for having read and/or listened to parts of this manuscript and given invaluable comments . I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Guido Podestá, Susan Stanford Friedman, Glen S. Close, and, particularly, Rubén Medina for extensive reading and commenting on this study. This book assumed its present form thanks largely to discussions with graduate and undergraduate students in the University of Wisconsin–Madison—my captive audience. I want to thank them for indulging my interests a semester at a time. Colleagues at conferences and meetings have also given helpful comments; I would especially like to thank Patrick O’Connor and César Salgado. x Acknowledgments I would not have been able to enjoy this project as much without all the support and fun provided by my amazing friends in both New York and Wisconsin (they know who they are). The same goes to my friends “on location,” whose conversations and support have been illuminating, and often irreplaceable. I would especially like to thank Julio César González Pagés for being a wonderful host and for his never-ending capacity to tell stories. The prehistory of this book is located in the most unlikely of places. I would like to thank my family and friends in Córdoba, Argentina, for their love and their easy laughter. I owe many of my professional choices to my grandmother and father: I wish I could thank Guillermina Pizarro for her passion for memory, and Rodolfo E. De Ferrari for his passion for rigor. The depth of their influence keeps them alive for me. My major debt, however, goes to my life partner, Mario Ortiz Robles, for his love, intelligence, and generosity. I cannot thank him enough for the many hours of conversation, reading, proofreading, and rereading that he has devoted to this project. He, more than anyone, has helped this manuscript be at its best (its shortcomings, however, are my entire responsibility). Most of all, many thanks to my beloved Paloma, for being born just in time to let me finish the manuscript. I am grateful to the University of Wisconsin’s Graduate School for supporting the research for this project with summer stipends. An earlier version of chapter 3 was published as “Cuerpo, enfermedad y utopía en Los pasos perdidos de Alejo Carpentier y Pájaros de la playa de Severo Sarduy” in the Hispanic Review 70(2) (Spring 2002): 219–41, and is reprinted by permission of the University of Pennsylvania Press; a more concise version of chapter 6, entitled “Aesthetics Under Siege: Dirty Realism and Pedro Juan Gutiérrez’s Trilogía sucia de La Habana,” appeared in the Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies 7 (2003): 23–44. Unless otherwise specified, the translations of all foreign-language quotations in this manuscript are mine. [3.229.122.112] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 07:12 GMT) Vulnerable States ...