Manuel Ramos Otero
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Manuel Ramos Otero (July 20, 1948 – October 7, 1990) was a Puerto Rican writer. He is widely considered to be the most important openly
gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...
twentieth-century Puerto Rican writer who wrote in Spanish, and his work was often controversial due to its sexual and political content. Ramos Otero died in San Juan,
Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...
, due to complications from AIDS.


Life

Jesús Manuel Ramos Otero was born in Manatí,
Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...
, and spent his childhood in his home town, living in the second location of the old building of the Puerto Rican Casino of Manatí. He began his studies at the Colegio La Inmaculada in Manatí. His family then moved to San Juan when he was seven years old. He later attended the
University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus The University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus ( es, Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Río Piedras; UPR-RP, or informally La IUPI) is a public land-grant research university in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is the largest campus in the Univ ...
(1960–1965) and went on to receive a B.A. in Social Sciences (with a major in sociology and a minor in political sciences) from the
University of Puerto Rico The University of Puerto Rico ( es, Universidad de Puerto Rico, UPR) is the main public university system in the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. It is a government-owned corporation with 11 campuses and approximately 58,000 students and 5,3 ...
, graduating in 1969. In 1979 he received an M.A. in literature from
New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...
. While living in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
, he worked as a social researcher, and later as a professor at diverse universities including
Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...
,
LaGuardia Community College LaGuardia Community College is a public community college in New York City. It is in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens in and part of the City University of New York. LaGuardia is named after former congressman and New York City mayo ...
, York College, and Lehman College. He also established a small publishing house, El Libro Viaje. He organized conferences and gatherings of his Puerto Rican writer friends in the United States such as Giannina Braschi and Luis Rafael Sanchez. He is best remembered as a poet and the author of short stories, but he also wrote a novel and several essays on literary criticism. In 1990, Otero returned to Puerto Rico to live out his final days.''"Manuel Ramos Otero Papers, circa 1920s-2007 ". www.columbia.edu''    He died on October 7 of that year of complications from HIV/AIDS. His posthumously-published work, Invitación a polvo, which Otero defined as “completely untranslatable,” directly addresses topics around the AIDS crisis. In 1998, the Guadalajara International Book Fair published Tálamos y tumbas prosa y verso, a collection of short stories, and the book of poetry, El libro de la muerte. In 1999, and again in 2002, the Pergones Theatre company in the Bronx adapted Otero’s short story, “El locura de la locura” to stage the play “El bolero fue mi ruina”. It was then adapted to an off-Broadway show in 2002 and staged by the Hostos Center for the Arts and Culture.


Literary production

Many but not all of Ramos Otero's works focus on autobiographical characters of gay Puerto Rican men who are writers and live in New York City. One of Ramos Otero's most interesting stories is "La última plena que bailó Luberza" (Luberza's Last
Plena Plena is a genre of music and dance native to Puerto Rico. Origins The plena genre originated in Barrio San Antón, Ponce, Puerto Rico, around 1900. It was influenced by the bomba style of music. Originally, sung texts were not associated wit ...
Dance), which he published in 1975 in the literary journal ''Zona de carga y descarga'' alongside a story by Rosario Ferré ("Cuando las mujeres quieren a los hombres"). Ramos Otero's and Ferré's stories were based on the life of Isabel Luberza Oppenheimer (better known as Isabel la Negra), a famous madam who ran a brothel in the city of Ponce from the 1930s to the 1960s. Ramos Otero's story was later included in his book ''El cuento de la Mujer del Mar'' (The Story of the Woman of the Sea). In his work, Ramos Otero openly defends gay viewpoints and feminist positions. For him, homosexuality represented an outsider status; he did not advocate for full integration, but rather explored the situation of marginal subjects. He also discussed his HIV status and the prejudice and discrimination faced by people affected by AIDS. Most of his production has not been translated and is only available in Spanish.


Works


Essays

*"De la colonización a la culonización." ''Cupey'' 8, no. 1-2 (1991): 63-79. *"La ética de la marginación en la poesía de Luis Cernuda." ''Cupey'' 5, no. 1-2 (1988): 16-29. *"Ficción e historia: Texto y pretexto de la autobiografía." ''El mundo'' (''Puerto Rico Ilustrado'') an Juan, P.R.14 de octubre de 1990: 20-23.


Narrative

*''Concierto de metal para un recuerdo y otras orgías de soledad''. San Juan: Editorial Cultural, 1971. *''El cuento de la Mujer del Mar''. Río Piedras: Ediciones Huracán, 1979. *''Cuentos de buena tinta''. San Juan: Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, 1992. *''La novelabingo''. New York: Editorial El Libro Viaje, 1976. *''Página en blanco y staccato''. 2nda ed. Madrid: Editorial Playor, 1988 987


Poetry

*''Invitación al polvo''. Madrid: Editorial Plaza Mayor, 1991. *''El libro de la muerte''. Río Piedras: Editorial Cultural; Maplewood, N.J.: Waterfront Press, 1985.


Collected works

* ''Cuentos (casi) completos''. Edited by Arnaldo Cruz-Malavé. Havana, Cuba: Fondo Editorial Casa de las Américas, 2019. * ''Cuentos "completos."'' Edited by Arnaldo Cruz-Malavé. San Juan, Puerto Rico: Editorial del Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña and Ediciones Callejón, 2023. *''Tálamos y tumbas: prosa y verso''. Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico: Universidad de Guadalajara, 1998.


Critical reception

Numerous literary scholars have written about Ramos Otero, including Arnaldo Cruz-Malavé, Jossianna Arroyo, Juan G. Gelpí, and José Quiroga. Rubén Ríos Ávila has compared Ramos Otero's experiences in New York to those of the exiled Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas. Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes has written about Ramos Otero in the context of the Puerto Rican queer diaspora, comparing him to other artists such as Luz María Umpierre,
Frances Negrón-Muntaner Frances Negrón-Muntaner (born 1966) is a Puerto Rican filmmaker, writer, and scholar. Her work is focused on a comparative exploration of coloniality, primarily in Puerto Rico and the United States, with special attention given to the interse ...
, Nemir Matos-Cintrón, and Erika Lopez.La Fountain-Stokes, Lawrence. ''Queer Ricans: Cultures and Sexualities in the Diaspora.'' Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009.


See also

* LGBT literature * LGBT rights in Puerto Rico * List of Puerto Ricans *
List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people This is a confirmed referenced overview list of notable gay, lesbian or bisexual people, who have either been open about their sexuality or for which reliable sources exist. The number of notables in the list is likely to be several times highe ...
* List of LGBT writers *
List of Puerto Rican writers This is a list of Puerto Rican literary figures, including poets, novelists, short story authors, and playwrights. It includes people who were born in Puerto Rico, people who are of Puerto Rican ancestry, and long-term residents or immigrants ...
*
Puerto Rican literature Puerto Rican literature is the body of literature produced by writers of Puerto Rican descent. It evolved from the art of oral storytelling. Written works by the indigenous inhabitants of Puerto Rico were originally prohibited and repressed by th ...
*
Puerto Ricans in the United States Stateside Puerto Ricans ( es, link=no, Puertorriqueños de Estados Unidos), also ambiguously known as Puerto Rican Americans ( es, link=no, puertorriqueño-americanos,), or Puerto Ricans in the United States, are Puerto Ricans who are in the U ...


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ramos Otero, Manuel 1948 births 1990 deaths American male poets Lehman College faculty Puerto Rican LGBT poets Puerto Rican gay writers New York University alumni People from Manatí, Puerto Rico Puerto Rican male short story writers Puerto Rican short story writers Puerto Rican poets Puerto Rican male writers 20th-century American poets 20th-century short story writers Rutgers University faculty York College, City University of New York faculty University of Puerto Rico alumni 20th-century American male writers AIDS-related deaths in Puerto Rico 20th-century Puerto Rican LGBT people Gay poets