Jaime Manrique weaves into his own memoir the lives of three important twentieth-century Hispanic writers: the Argentine Manuel Puig, author of Kiss of the Spider Woman; the Cuban Reinaldo Arenas, author of Before Night Falls; and Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca. Manrique celebrates the lives of these heroic writers who were made outcasts for both their homosexuality and their politics.

"Manrique's double vision yields insights into Puig, Arenas, and Lorca unavailable to a writer less attuned to the complex interplay of culture and sexuality, as well as that of race and class in Latino and Anglo societies."—George DeStefano, The Nation


"A splendid memoir of Manuel Puig. It evokes him—how he really was—better than anything I've read."—Susan Sontag



"Where Manrique's tale differs from others is in its unabashed and sensitive treatment of sexuality. One reads his autobiographical account with pleasure and fascination."—Jose Quiroga, George Washington University



"Manrique's voice is wise, brave, and wholly original. This chronicle of self-discovery and literary encounters is heartening and deep."—Kennedy Fraser



"In this charmingly indiscreet memoir, Jaime Manrique writes with his customary humor and warm sympathy, engaging our delighted interest on every page. He has the rare gift of invoking and inviting intimacy, in this case a triangulated intimacy between himself, his readers, and his memories. These are rich double portraits."—Phillip Lopate

Exuberant and colorful, Latin Moon in Manhattan paints a vivid portrait of New York City as the land of El Dorado for today’s Latino immigrants. From Little Colombia in Queens to the street life of Times Square, this brilliant novel is crowded with an extraordinary cast of characters: Hot Sauce, a midget hooker; Simon Bolivar, a parrot who croons Julio Iglesias songs; the Urrutias, a family rich from cocaine smuggling; Santiago Martinez, a loner and would-be poet whose ancient cat, Mr. O’Donnell, is slowly dying of an enlarged heart. Exploding with a profusion of plots and subplots involving drug smuggling, romance, and the literary politics of Queens, Latin Moon in Manhattan is a rich and utterly charming work.

These exquisite love poems, some of them clearly addressed to women, were written by the visionary and passionate genius of Mexican letters, the seventeenth-century nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. In this volume they are translated into the idiom of our own time by poets Joan Larkin and Jaime Manrique. Some of them are rooted in Renaissance courtly conventions; others are startlingly ahead of their time, seemingly modern in the naked power of the complex sexual feelings they address.

Colombian-born Santiago Martinez starts his adult life as a young gay writer living in Spain. Years later, as a university professor in New York City, Santiago is called back to his native Colombia upon the suicide of his sister. There he learns some shocking secrets about his childhood and adolescence and comes to the realization that cherished memories of the past are only illusion.