Lost Cities Go to Paradise

Poetry breaks into song and poetic prose becomes lively storytelling in Lost Cities Go to Paradise. Composed of many layered scenes, unforgettable characters, snapshots, vignettes, intimate questions are raised about the fragility of contemporary life. Deceit and conceit mix with moments of tenderness and the illusive nature of humanity. The “cities” of the poems and short fiction in this collection move through space and time, built upon memory and linguistic surprise, with not a little heat and light. A man with two bills gives three out of generosity, a woman hides her face so that she may be better seen, cheating lovers betray only to end up entwined in a tango, immigrants borrow each other’s accents, and a sweet avenger sings lullabies to her enemies during battle. Is identity more than a festival of masks and self-invention?  Multiple human currencies and capital circulate in bankrupt cities inspiring surreptitious commerce and a masquerade of disaster and spectacle. Secrets move the reader forward with avid desire to discover those hidden places in a city of cities, their lost city, their lost paradise, mapped with longing and the strange architecture and enchantments of the human heart,  Regina Galasso’s lively and brilliant English translation brings the poetic orality of Alicia Borinsky’s “Lost Cities” to the reader with great precision and vitality.