An Evening with Julián Delgado Lopera in discussion with Christopher Alonso

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It is a known fact that the queens who refuse their destiny are haunted. Rejection turns itself inward, a bullet to the heart of said queen, and unleashes, per Travesti Lore, a river of curses.
Cloistered in a dreary Bogotá apartment, Ignacio’s light has dimmed, leaving his teenage daughter, Valentina, to raise herself in the wake of her mother Alma’s death. Lonely and love-starved, Valentina aches to discover the details of her mother’s drowning, and for her father to snap out of his depression. But Ignacio can’t. He spends listless afternoons smoking cigarettes in long blonde wigs, telenovelas humming in the background, haunted not only by matrimonial guilt, but by memories of a young man he once loved and betrayed.
From Ignacio’s tragic past emerges the luminous queen of Bogotá’s queer underground, Mamadora Eléctrica, the wise travesti who he first met under the silvery lights of Club Aquario when he was just a shy country boy. With Alma gone, Mamadora steps in as a mother figure to Valentina the way she once did for the girl’s father. But as an expert in Travesti Lore, she fears the worst: that Ignacio’s self-destruction may have unleashed a curse on them all.
From “a writer who is grinding their own colors” (Dwight Garner, New York Times), Pretend You’re Dead and I Carry You is a profound and richly imagined story about coming undone.

Julián Delgado Lopera is the author of Fiebre Tropical, winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction and finalist for the Kirkus Prize and Aspen Literary Prize, among other honors. Born and raised in Colombia, Julián teaches Creative Writing at CUNY. He lives in Brooklyn.

Christopher R. Alonso was born and raised in Miami, FL. He has worked as an indie bookseller and is a graduate of the NEOMFA program. His work has appeared in or is forthcoming from The University Press of Florida, Guernica, and Catapult, among others. His writing has received support from Juniper Summer Writing Institute and the Miami Writers Institute. He is a 2023 Periplus Fellow. He was awarded the McCormack Writing Center's (formerly Tin House) 2022 First Book Summer Residency. He is at work on a novel.

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