Manuel Ramos Otero (July 20, 1948 – October 7, 1990) was a Puerto Rican writer. He is widely considered to be the most important openly

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late ...

twentieth-century Puerto Rican writer who wrote in Spanish, and his work was often controversial due to its sexual and political content. Ramos Otero died in

San Juan San Juan, Spanish for Saint John (disambiguation), Saint John, most commonly refers to: * San Juan, Puerto Rico * San Juan, Argentina * San Juan, Metro Manila, a highly urbanized city in the Philippines San Juan may also refer to: Places Arge ...

Puerto Rico ; abbreviated PR), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is a Government of Puerto Rico, self-governing Caribbean Geography of Puerto Rico, archipelago and island organized as an Territories of the United States, unincorporated territo ...

, from complications of

AIDS The HIV, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that attacks the immune system. Without treatment, it can lead to a spectrum of conditions including acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). It is a Preventive healthcare, pr ...

Life

Jesús Manuel Ramos Otero was born in Manatí,

, and spent his childhood in his home town, living in the second location of the old building of the Puerto Rican Casino of Manatí. He began his studies at the Colegio La Inmaculada in Manatí. His family then moved to San Juan when he was seven years old. He later attended the

University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus The University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus (; UPR-RP, or informally La IUPI) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is the largest campus in the University of Puer ...

(1960–1965) and went on to receive a B.A. in Social Sciences (with a major in sociology and a minor in political sciences) from the

University of Puerto Rico The University of Puerto Rico (Spanish language, Spanish: ''Universidad de Puerto Rico;'' often shortened to UPR) is the main List of state and territorial universities in the United States, public university system in the Commonwealth (U.S. i ...

, graduating in 1969. In 1979 he received an M.A. in literature from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

. While living in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, he worked as a social researcher, and later as a professor at diverse universities including

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

LaGuardia Community College LaGuardia Community College is a Public college, public Community colleges in the United States, community college in New York City. It is in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens in and part of the City University of New York. LaGuardia i ...

, York College, and

Lehman College Lehman College is a public college in New York City, United States. Founded in 1931 as the Bronx campus of Hunter College, it became an independent college in 1967. The college is named after Herbert H. Lehman, a former New York governor, United ...

. He also established a small publishing house, El Libro Viaje. He organized conferences and gatherings of his Puerto Rican writer friends in the United States such as Giannina Braschi and Luis Rafael Sanchez. He is best remembered as a poet and the author of short stories, but he also wrote a novel and several essays on literary criticism. In 1990, Otero returned to Puerto Rico to live out his final days.''"Manuel Ramos Otero Papers, circa 1920s-2007 ". www.columbia.edu'' He died on October 7 of that year of complications from HIV/AIDS. His posthumously-published work, Invitación a polvo, which Otero defined as “completely untranslatable,” directly addresses topics around the AIDS crisis. In 1998, the

Guadalajara International Book Fair The Guadalajara International Book Fair, better known as the FIL (from its Spanish name: ) is the largest book fair in the Americas, and second-largest book fair in the world after Frankfurt Book Fair, Frankfurt's. It is also considered the most i ...

published Tálamos y tumbas prosa y verso, a collection of short stories, and the book of poetry, El libro de la muerte. In 1999, and again in 2002, the Pergones Theatre company in the Bronx adapted Otero’s short story, “El locura de la locura” to stage the play “El bolero fue mi ruina”. It was then adapted to an off-Broadway show in 2002 and staged by the Hostos Center for the Arts and Culture.

Literary production

Many but not all of Ramos Otero's works focus on autobiographical characters of gay Puerto Rican men who are writers and live in New York City. One of Ramos Otero's most interesting stories is "La última plena que bailó Luberza" (Luberza's Last

Plena Plena is a genre of music and dance native to Puerto Rico. Origins The plena genre originated in Barrio San Antón, Ponce, Puerto Rico, around 1900. It was influenced by the bomba style of music. Originally, sung texts were not associated wit ...

Dance), which he published in 1975 in the literary journal ''Zona de carga y descarga'' alongside a story by

Rosario Ferré Rosario Ferré Ramírez de Arellano (September 28, 1938 – February 18, 2016) was a Puerto Rican writer, poet, and essayist.

("Cuando las mujeres quieren a los hombres"). Ramos Otero's and Ferré's stories were based on the life of Isabel Luberza Oppenheimer (better known as Isabel la Negra), a famous

madam Madam (), or madame ( or ), is a polite and formal form of address for Woman, women in the English language, often contracted to ma'am (pronounced in American English and this way but also in British English). The term derives from the French la ...

who ran a

brothel A brothel, strumpet house, bordello, bawdy house, ranch, house of ill repute, house of ill fame, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in Human sexual activity, sexual activity with prostitutes. For legal or cultural reasons, establis ...

in the city of Ponce from the 1930s to the 1960s. Ramos Otero's story was later included in his book ''El cuento de la Mujer del Mar'' (The Story of the Woman of the Sea). In his work, Ramos Otero openly defends gay viewpoints and feminist positions. For him, homosexuality represented an outsider status; he did not advocate for full integration, but rather explored the situation of marginal subjects. He also discussed his HIV status and the prejudice and discrimination faced by people affected by AIDS. Most of his production has not been translated and is only available in Spanish.

Works

Essays

*"De la colonización a la culonización." ''Cupey'' 8, no. 1-2 (1991): 63-79. *"La ética de la marginación en la poesía de Luis Cernuda." ''Cupey'' 5, no. 1-2 (1988): 16-29. *"Ficción e historia: Texto y pretexto de la autobiografía." ''El mundo'' (''Puerto Rico Ilustrado'') an Juan, P.R.14 de octubre de 1990: 20-23.

Narrative

*''Concierto de metal para un recuerdo y otras orgías de soledad''. San Juan: Editorial Cultural, 1971. *''El cuento de la Mujer del Mar''. Río Piedras: Ediciones Huracán, 1979. *''Cuentos de buena tinta''. San Juan: Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, 1992. *''La novelabingo''. New York: Editorial El Libro Viaje, 1976. *''Página en blanco y staccato''. 2nda ed. Madrid: Editorial Playor, 1988 987

Poetry

*''Invitación al polvo''. Madrid: Editorial Plaza Mayor, 1991. *''El libro de la muerte''. Río Piedras: Editorial Cultural; Maplewood, N.J.: Waterfront Press, 1985.

Collected works

* ''Cuentos (casi) completos''. Edited by Arnaldo Cruz-Malavé. Havana, Cuba: Fondo Editorial Casa de las Américas, 2019. * ''Cuentos "completos."'' Edited by Arnaldo Cruz-Malavé. San Juan, Puerto Rico: Editorial del Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña and Ediciones Callejón, 2023. *''Tálamos y tumbas: prosa y verso''. Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico: Universidad de Guadalajara, 1998.

Critical reception

Numerous literary scholars have written about Ramos Otero, including Arnaldo Cruz-Malavé, Jossianna Arroyo, Juan G. Gelpí, and José Quiroga. Rubén Ríos Ávila has compared Ramos Otero's experiences in New York to those of the exiled Cuban writer

Reinaldo Arenas Reinaldo Arenas (July 16, 1943 – December 7, 1990) was a Cuban poet, novelist, and playwright who is known as a vocal critic of Fidel Castro, the Cuban Revolution, and the Cuban government. His memoir of the Cuban dissident movement and of bei ...

Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes (born April 10, 1968) is a gay Puerto Rican author, scholar, and performer. He is better known as Larry La Fountain. He has received several awards for his creative writing and scholarship as well as for his work with ...

has written about Ramos Otero in the context of the Puerto Rican queer diaspora, comparing him to other artists such as Luz María Umpierre, Frances Negrón-Muntaner,

Nemir Matos-Cintrón Nemir Matos Cintrón (born 1949) is a Puerto Rican author who resides in Florida. She has published several books of poetry and parts of a novel. She has openly thematized her lesbianism in much of her work. Life Matos Cintrón was born on No ...

, and Erika Lopez.La Fountain-Stokes, Lawrence. ''Queer Ricans: Cultures and Sexualities in the Diaspora.'' Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ramos Otero, Manuel 1948 births 1990 deaths People from Manatí, Puerto Rico Puerto Rican male poets Puerto Rican male short story writers Puerto Rican male essayists Puerto Rican LGBTQ poets Puerto Rican gay writers Gay poets Lehman College faculty Rutgers University faculty York College, City University of New York faculty University of Puerto Rico alumni New York University alumni AIDS-related deaths in Puerto Rico 20th-century Puerto Rican male writers 20th-century Puerto Rican poets 20th-century Puerto Rican short story writers 20th-century Puerto Rican LGBTQ people