Nailed to the Wound — José Manuel Di Bella's Short Stories Will Leave You Bodiless

Welcome literaries, savants of culture, vultures of prose, decentralizers, insomniacs, underliners, Chicanos, and all those obsessed with the written word in all its formats!

As I stumbled through the SDSU PRESS room's tower of inventory, I found, behind a couple of straggler books, a pile of thin, terracotta red ones. Their innocuous presence was contradicted by the title, a thing that caught my eye... "Nailed To The Wound" by José Manuel Di Bella, translated by Harry Polkinhorn, is a collection of fourteen short stories from one of Baja California's most innovative contemporary fiction writers.

The foreword by Tomás Di Bella incites the curiosity needed to explore as the tales take on a relentless stream of consciousness. Each narrative unfurls into itself, chasing ideas with the enormity that can only come from an acolyte of Carpentier, Pirandello, and Borges. It is a dangerous trinity to inherit, and an especially punishing one to attempt within the compressed architecture of a short story.

It is certainly an ambitious read. But us readers, we like to be bodiless, subsumed from our needs as we jump into the next story. I dived without commitment, and found a beautifully chaotic prose, a question in the dark, and a frenzy began to emerge in me, your humble informant.

Di Bella's inspects borders, agonizing love and art. The necessary space between creator and consumer, the ego of it all, to be, to want to seem to be... As the story is ingested, at times we may ask, which way is up? But we do know, like a shining light being pointed at the answer, that this collection will challenge us, our loss, our nostalgia, our disappointing conformities.

José Manuel Di Bella's story-filled upbringing comes through on the page through a meta break. We readers are spoken at directly, teased, baited, and puppeteered, then soaked in a sensual vat of wisdom as we tear through each tale. Idiots Come Out in April, The Memory of Your Body on My Hands, Hallucination of Touch, Caliente... The stories are raw, robust, and full of the simple truths which hide under our bleeding wounds.

By Daniela Moreno 

Ready for the next intoxicating read? Purchase a first edition copy here! 

Paperback $9.95

ISBN:1879691140

SDSU Press Hosts Porter Elementary @ SDSU

 

New Visions from Blind Spots: 10 year anniversary of El Punto Ciego, the Anthology of Argentine Visual Poetry

 

The line “while most of the texts are written in Spanish, all visual poems will be undoubtedly enjoyed by readers of any language” concludes the opening forward to El Punto Ciego, by one of its Editors: Doctorovich. It was a welcome reassurance for me, a non-Spanish speaker, as I began to peruse the pages of this anthology of visual poetry from Argentina, and it sets up this book from SDSU Press as a fantastically unique visual art reference tool as much as a reflective scholarly work. 

 

It’s an anthology that was nearly fated for non-existence, as the Editor details the story of commerce, illness, and even a robbery that transpired during its creation. Because of their enduring efforts, readers (and viewers) are given a wide-ranging overview of Argentinian experimental poetry, which may have forever remained a blind spot for those outside this very niche scene. The editors “...took into account the influence of technology on genre, starting from the discovery of rock paintings (petroglyphs from the Cave of Hands) to recent experiments with computers and networks” thus carving a large contextual lineage of visual aesthetics from denizens of this part of the world. “The game between literature and technology has always been there, just that for centuries the ‘Gutenberg Galaxy’ has dominated, and the technological matrix became invisible to the eyes of readers” - invisible indeed, and that which the publication of this book hopes to bring into focus for anyone interested in art history, Argentinian and Latin American arts, experimental poetry, design, and beyond.  

"Paralengua" by Fabio Doctorovich, 1995

 

Many of the pieces featured have a timeless quality to them - fitting right alongside any modern art or design canon. Yet for someone like me, whose eyes have limited exposure (perhaps extra blind spots) to this region’s aesthetics, each also carries something new, fresh, and inspiring. As much as one can learn from the essays and written text of the book, one can also learn and possibly even incorporate material as reference for their own visual artistic work – helping us all to continue to see our own blind spots more clearly. 

"Alphabet, lunar sentence I" by Leandro Katz, 1979

 

  

"124" by Juan Carlos Romero, 1997

Order the standard trade edition or special limited edition with fine glossy paper for you or the visual arts, photographer, graphic designer, experimental poetry lover or practitioner in your life. Begin to see more with El Punto Ciego.

"Xamine Todo Retene le Bõ" by Xul Solar, 1962

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Evan D. Shulman is a Senior Editor & Scholarly Communications and Digital Publishing Manager at SDSU Press. He is also a candidate for a Master of Arts in Liberal Arts & Sciences (MALAS). 
Connect on Academia.edu or LinkedIn

Aesthetic and Film History in Fanny Daubigny's Proust in Black: Los Angeles / A Prussian Fiction

by Janesa Brosnan, SDSU Press Editorial and Marketing Associate

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If you like deep dives into cinema, then Proust in Black: Los Angeles, a Proustian Fiction, is for you! Proust in Black blends art and scene. By merging the works of Marcel Proust with Film Noir against the backdrop of Los Angeles, Fanny Daubigny gives a fascinating tale and accomplished analysis.  Daubigny explains the relationship eloquently, “In Proust’s preference for a cinema of intimacy, there is otherwise the representation of an aesthetics of persistence of memory against oblivion…which indefatigably transforms the diverse into the same, the individual into the whole, and silence into noise.”(Daubigny 24)

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Dissecting and expanding our understanding of Proust, the author transforms and connects the themes of his work with LA film. Daubigny mainly focuses on A la recherche du temps perdu or In Search of Lost Time, with inclusions of his other works.

Fanny Daubigny

As someone who grew up around the Los Angeles film industry, I loved the inclusion of the scenes of LA in the films discussed in the book. It created an intimate understanding of Daubigny’s and Proust’s work as the dark mystery and reminiscence is also contained in L.A. nights.

Note this special, full-color volume comes in two paperback editions: A deluxe, archival paper, paperback edition ➡️ Proust color special edition https://amzn.to/4vISaOt | $28.95 + shipping

 

... and our Proust regular trade paperback ➡️ https://amzn.to/4mJAAWe |  $19.95 + shipping

SDSU Press Co-hosts Chuck Palahniuk @ SDSU

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