Animal Spiral Luis Othoniel Rosa 9781917260329

A utopian experimental novel that tells the story of the birth, life, and death of a collective consciousness called the Animal.'What I mean to say is that madness is a right.' So begins Animal Spiral , a utopian experimental novel that tells the story of the birth, life, and death of a collective consciousness called the Animal.The book narrates a tale about a world that is both desirable and terrifying over the next 377 years. It starts in the middle. In the Caribbean. It slowly follows the strict form of a narrative spiral through cycles of destruction. Then it moves back to our present so we can see our world becoming the other one. Its protagonist is a collective consciousness, the Animal. It is born. It grows and learns. It dies. It is mourned by cybernetic goddesses. It also screams: Loneliness is a collective disease! We defend our right to madness! Brave are not the ones who resist; brave are the ones who let go!

Luis Othoniel Rosa (Bayamon, Puerto Rico, 1985) studied at the University of Puerto Rico and received a PhD from Princeton University. He is the author of the novels Otra vez me alejo (Argentina: Entropia, 2012; Puerto Rico: Isla Negra, 2013) and Caja de fractales (Argentina: Entropia, 2017; Puerto Rico: La Secta de los Perros, 2018). The latter was creatively translated into English as Down with Gargamel! (USA: Argos Books, 2020). He is also the author of Calima , a wild bilingual fiction (Spanish-English) in collaboration with various artists and translators (Puerto Rico: La Impresora, 2023) and of the academic book, Comienzos para una estetica anarquista: Borges con Macedonio (Chile: Cuarto Propio, 2016; Argentina: Corregidor, 2020). He is the founding editor of www.ElRoommate.com.

Katie Marya is the author of Sugar Work , the Editor's Choice for 2020 Alice James Book Award. Her poetry, creative nonfiction, and translations have appeared in literary magazines such as AGNI , North American Review , Waxwing , Salamander , Fence , and on the national poetry podcast The Slowdown Show . She lives in Nebraska and teaches writing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

"In the tradition of the civilizational sagas of Isaac Asimov, and Kim Stanley Robinson, Rosa's novel contemplates a future in which the collective replaces the individual as the locus of our most intimate desires and fears." -Jeff Lawrence , author of THE ANXIETIES OF EXPERIENCE: THE LITERATURES OF THE AMERICAS FROM WHITMAN TO BOLANO

"One of the most brilliant young writers of our time." -Marta Aponte Alsina , author of LA MUERTE FELIZ DE WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

"A master work capable of redeeming a broken world." -Carlos Fonseca , author of AUSTRAL

"Animal Spiral takes readers on a ride from the roots of human consciousness to modernity and beyond (...). More than science fiction, Animal Spiral is speculative anarchism with shades of Luisa Capetillo, William Burroughs and Octavia Butler." -"Dr. Michael Cucher, University of Puerto Rico"