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AUTHOR Gil Cuadros (19621996) was a groundbreaking gay Latino writer whose work explored the intersections of sexuality, race, and spirituality. Diagnosed as HIV positive in 1987, Cuadros channeled his experiences into his acclaimed collection, City of God (published by City Lights in 1994), which captured the raw emotions of living with a life-threatening illness. His lyrical intensity and unflinching honesty shined a light on marginalized communities and familial expectations. The book was highly acclaimed when it was first published and captured the attention of prominent writers in the literary community, among them Paul Monette, Eloise Klein Healy, and Wanda Coleman. It has gained a growing readership over the years. Cuadros was a resident of West Hollywood when he died at the age of thirty-four. EDITORS Pablo Alvarez's scholarship and research are grounded in activism and collaborations that unearth the legacies of Latinx and Chicanx AIDS queer ancestry through literature, photography, documentary, and film. He is an assistant professor in Women and Gender Studies and Queer Studies at California State University, Fullerton, and is a first-gen Chicanx from Pico Rivera. Kevin J. Martin is the executor of the Estate of Gil Cuadros, and a longtime copy editor and writer. Currently, he serves as Senior Writer and Associate Editor for MagellanTV, where he writes on various topics related to art and culture. Martin resides in Glendale, CA. Rafael Prez-Torres is professor of English and Gender Studies at UCLA and author of Movements in Chicano Poetry and Critical Mestizaje, co-author of Memories of an East L.A. Outlaw, and co-editor of The Chicano Studies Reader. He lives in Santa Barbara, CA. Terry Wolverton is an acclaimed author of twelve books of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction, including her forthcoming novel, Season of the Eclipse, from Bella Books. The Lambda Award-winning literary editor for His: brilliant new fiction by gay writers and Hers: brilliant new fiction by lesbians, she lives in Los Angeles, CA. FOREWORD BY Justin Torres is the author of We the Animals and Blackouts, winner of the 2023 National Book Awards for Fiction. Recipient of numerous accolades for his work, including the National Book Foundation ""5 Under 35,"" a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, and a fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, he teaches at UCLA and lives in Los Angeles, CA.
"Praise for My Body Is Paper: ""In his poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, Gil Cuadros speaks the reality of his heart, honoring not only his suffering with HIV/AIDS but his survival.""— Eloise Klein Healy, author, A Brilliant Loss ""I weep with this book, although it is a celebration, it reminds me of the possibility of a writer called back too soon. The language is a song grounded in earth and culture. There is such rhythm I languish in the stories, even as they make me miss more and more. I don't want it to end, so I keep going back and reading it over and over, each time a reference unfolds differently, the words strike other meanings, the memories have different colors, and I am left with who we all were.""—Luis Alfaro, playwright Praise for Gil Cuadros’ City of God: Chosen one of the Los Angeles Times’s “Essential Los Angeles Books,” April 2023 “Before he died in 1996, Cuadros left behind this remarkable gift. . . . this intense work depicts the rejection . . . often faced in Latino families, the empowerment spurred by sexual freedom, the menacing impact of the epidemic and the personal toll on Cuadros and his friends.”— Los Angeles Times on Gil Cuadros’s City of God, honored as an “Essential Los Angeles Book,” April 2023 “The sensual, the expressive, the daring, the transformed become the martyrs of every era, every family. Their memoirs, heroics are our most devastating works of art. Gil Cuadros’s story ‘Unprotected’ is a classic of AIDS fiction and deserves a place of honor in the mosaic of American writing.”—Sarah Schulman, author of My American History: Lesbian and Gay Life During the Reagan/Bush Years “Cuadros, who won both the 1991 Brody Literature Fellowship and one of the first PEN Center USA/West grants to writers with HIV, establishes himself as a new force in contemporary gay-themed writing with this collection. City of God provides frank, powerful testimony to life's continuation during the era of AIDS.”—Publishers Weekly ""City of God is an unsparing account of devastation and empowerment in the age of AIDS. From the body’s first mysterious eroticism to its final humiliation and pain, Gil Cuadros gives voice to both the beauty and sorrow of our common fate. His writing cuts like a double-edged sword—at times artful and sharp, at times unfiltered and raw. This is an awesome and haunting book.”—David Trinidad, author of Digging to Wonderland: Memory Pieces “In a voice poised between plainspokenness and urgency, Gil Cuadros writes about the remnants of love in a devastated world. The poems and stories in City of God are as dire as they are beautiful, and sharp as a blow to the body.”—Bernard Cooper, author of My Avant-Garde Education: A Memoir “I accuse Gil Cuadros of literary seduction in the nth degree . . . He makes me read on when I want to cry . . . I do not want to look at his words, and yet I cannot take my eyes away. His images sooth, burn, inspire. I accuse Gil Cuadros of language abuse—his stroke of silk, his pen a bludgeon. I accuse him of heart-bashing.”—Wanda Coleman, author of Wicked Enchantment: Selected Poems"
