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A near-future novel set in a Puerto Rico besieged by human-caused ecological disaster.
Vero has always felt at odds with his community. As a trans man in near-future Puerto Rico, he struggles to gain acceptance for his identity and his vision of an inclusive society. After a hurricane decimates the island and Puerto Rico is abandoned by the United States, Vero leaves his home to petition the centralized government for aid and seek the truth about new colonists arriving on the island. But in the Yucatan, Vero finds a landscape ravaged by an ecological disaster of humanity's own making-the Hydrophage, a climate technology warped into a weapon of war and released onto the land by the dictator Caudillo.
Amidst the destruction, Vero finds both desperation and hope for regrowth as he documents the lives of the survivors. Details about the colonists' intentions emerge when Vero meets the Loba Roja, an anti-Caudillo revolutionary who imagines the renewed power of the Maya. Intrigued by her vision of the future and her unapologetic violence, Vero is faced with life-changing questions: can an Indigenous resurgence protect his beloved island? And what must he sacrifice to support it?
"Condé's brutal, mystical, and deeply felt speculative debut lifts up a vision of Indigenous resistance and renewal in the face of climate change and colonizers... The author's depiction of Taíno culture is profound, his evocative images of a land in ruin are visceral, and the grief and sheer determination expressed through his characters is often so vivid as to be overwhelming."
—Publisher's Weekly (starred review)
"Dreamy and vengeful, a character unto itself...At its heart, Sordidez is a clarion call to recognize that the political and biological ecosystems of the world are intertwined."
—Foreword Reviews
"Condé gives us a clear-eyed, optimistic vision of how storytelling can transcend borders and create solidarity among resistance movements. ... With great respect for history and heritage, identity and environment, Sordidez depicts the future hurtling toward us, as well as the courage we'll need to meet that future head-on."
—Lisa M. Bradley, author of The Haunted Girl and Exile
"E.G. Condé picks up a kaleidoscope in Sordidez and peers into the future, in the direction of Puerto Rico and the Yucatán peninsula, forming a vibrant Latinx vision of our future, and fulfilling the promise of speculative fiction to inspire us in the process of decolonization. Amidst the strange new horrors created by both humans and AIs in this future world, the trans protagonist Vero Diaz endeavors to heal the people and the land through the revolutionary spirit of the Taíno."
—Matthew David Goodwin, editor of Speculative Fiction for Dreamers
This information about Sordidez was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
E.G. Condé is an anthropologist of technology and an emerging speculative fiction writer of the Puerto Rican diaspora. His short fiction appears in If There's Anyone Left, Reckoning, EASST Review, Tree and Stone, Sword & Sorcery, and Solarpunk Magazine. Stay connected to his writing at www.egconde.com or follow him on social media via @CloudAnthro.
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