Benito Pastoriza Iyodo

The works of Benito Pastoriza Iyodo engage the reader in the conspiracy of truth. Through poetry and narrative, the author's writings reflect the clash between the real and the unreal, in search of hope for modern man in crisis. Pastoriza Iyodo explores our multifaceted world in order to become intimate with the demons and gods that dwell within us. This Web site includes a synopsis of some of the writer's accomplishments, awards and publications as well as an orientation to his published works, with a sampling of reviews and excerpts. Each of the author's books is being translated into English for future publication. This portal also offers additional information for those who wish to learn more about the author or for those who desire to purchase his books.

HIS WORKS

Benito Pastoriza Iyodo´s novel, El agua del paraíso, was released in April 2008. A description follows below with a link to a seven-page excerpt from the work. Pastoriza Iyodo also has two collections of fiction and two books of poetry currently available. The following section provides information about each, with links to other sections of this Website for more details, book reviews and other commentary. You may scroll down the page or click on one of the book title links to go directly to a particular title. A partial list of book retailers and distributors is included at the bottom of this page along with an e-mail contact link to facilitate further inquiries.

El agua del paraíso Nena, nena de mi corazón Cuestión de hombres

Cartas a la sombra de tu piel Elegías de septiembre

El agua del paraíso (The Water of Paradise) - April 2008

El agua del paraíso (The Water of Paradise) invites the reader to a lost Eden where myth, history and legend intertwine to tell the tale of characters marked by adversity and existential twists of fate. The ocean, the sea, the river and waterfalls form the aquatic environs that frame a poetic narrative canvas that simultaneously glides through time and forgotten places. In this setting of water and myth, four women come to represent a matriarchy sustained by tradition while attempting to shape an uncertain future where progress and the world of men can be both overwhelming and perplexing. The novel is constructed in diverse geographic spaces: from millinery Galicia and mythical Ireland to the islands of Africa, with the great majority of the plot occurring in the Caribbean, where the four generations of females forge their lives. The emancipating character of nature is the crucial element that will rise up and liberate these women from the universal exigency of men. (229 pages)

ISBN-13: 978-1-4363-2567-7 ISBN-10: 1-4363-2567-6 EXCERPT

Nena, nena de mi corazón (Beloved, Beloved of My Heart) - December 2006

Nena, nena de mi corazón (Beloved, Beloved of My Heart) is a text on Latino displacement throughout the world. The principle characters circulate and circumnavigate in multiple geographic, political, historical and social spheres pertaining to the ever-changing Hispanic reality. They fragment all boundaries, destroying national utopias to capture glimpses of themselves within social parameters at times distorted and at other times exchanged for unions, erroneous or reinvented, that permit them to be placed within order or chaos of the new world vision. The feminine figure is the central axis to define and redefine the earthly, mystic and spiritual human essence. The book represents a dialogue with its predecessor Cuestión de hombres (A Matter of Men), where the masculine figure delved into and questioned the absurd preambles that insisted on constraining the nucleus of its being. (143 pages) (Fiction)

ISBN-13: 978-1-4257-3621-7

ISBN-10: 1-4257-3621-1 REVIEWS EXCERPT

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Cuestión de hombres (A Matter of Men) - December 2006

The second edition of this collection of nine short stories, Cuestión de hombres, includes an eloquent prologue by the writer and professor, Carlos Manuel Rivera, PhD.

Cuestión de hombres (A Matter of Men) navigates the treacherous waters of masculine sexuality, plotting the conditions that define manhood: from the boy initiated in the ritual of his sex to all of the Latino male stereotypes, from the super-macho to the closeted homosexual, with variations in between. This masculine diversity can be seen in human interaction, driven to extremes by society’s predefined rules. The journey in search of masculinity includes incursions ranging from deceitful pleasure to the purest of loves. (108 pages)

ISBN-13: 978-1-4257-3068-0

ISBN-10: 1-4257-3068-X REVIEWS

1st ed. out-of-print 2nd edition Dec. 2006

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Cartas a la sombra de tu piel (Letters to the shadow of your love) - 2002

Navigating the parameters of Cartas a la sombra de tu piel, a vortex of melodious verdant hues traps the reader in a jungle of premonitions. There, love becomes flesh, real to the tact of the other, the sweat of the beloved, the man’s skin … and yet transcending the corporal, the material. This journey leads to unknown lands, inaugurated by a love that creates and re-creates itself in the sphere of a new reality where everyday variables do not apply, making it necessary to institute an unwritten language to describe this world, this world of love. (Poetry)

ISBN: 9709339400

Pages: 80 REVIEWS EXCERPT

Elegías de septiembre (September Elegies)

In light of recent Earth-shattering events, September Elegies appears as a prophetic reflection of the world cast in Greco-Latin hues. It offers a philosophical-poetic analysis of man’s self-destructive reality in contrast with the forces of creation. A dialectic generates vivid tension: love-indolence, abundance-misery, peace and order-war and chaos. This work contains a sensual longing, a creative play of implacable intelligence that renounces the silence that covers us with a cloak of complicity. For the author there is a vestige of hope for harmonious coexistence with other beings, with the world and with all things through the interactive solutions yet to be proffered by the reader. (Poetry)

ISBN: 9709339419

Pages: 72 REVIEWS

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El agua del paraíso (novel), Nena, nena de mi corazón and Cuestión de hombres (the two short story collections) are available via Xlibris.com. All of the author's titles can be purchased through Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books A Million and other Internet book sources. (Some book sellers may not have the novel in stock until June 2008.) Wholesale distribution is provided by Baker & Taylor Books, Ingram Books, Blackwell Library Services and other distributors throughout the US, the UK and other countries.

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