Breviary of Americanisms - Paperback
Breviary of Americanisms - Paperback
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by Carlos Aguasaco (Author), Jennifer Rathbun (Translator)
Breviary of Americanisms is an abecedarian collection of poems by Colombian American author Carlos Aguasaco. The work recovers words and traditions rooted in Latin America's African and indigenous origins, including those of the Kuna, Incan, Mayan, Nahua, Bantu, and Taino civilizations.
A breviary refers to a book containing prayers, hymns, psalms, or readings for Divine Office. Drawing on this form, Aguasaco uses the alphabet as an organizing principle, presenting the poems as dictionary definitions. Each term is considered critical in order to understand the Latin American identity and recognize the significance of its African and Indigenous linguistic and cultural heritage. The collection employs a secular structural framework that integrates an overarching sacred thematic scheme. The processes of self-definition and the reclamation of racial and cultural identity are framed as sacred endeavors, as is the recovery of Indigenous roots.
By bringing together secular and sacred elements, Aguasaco's poetics of cultural recovery resists and deconstructs historical erasures, contributing to the ongoing decolonization of Latin American literature, cultures, and people-a process that remains crucial within the humanities.
