Celebrated author Luis Rafael Sánchez’s most recent essay collection, Piel sospechosa (Seix Barral, 2025) will be launched on July 9, 2025, at 7:00pm, at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico [Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico, MAC, located at 1120 Ponce de León Avenue, San Juan, Puerto Rico]. Piel sospechosa [Suspicious Skin] “presents a forceful denouncement of racism [in the Caribbean] and its echoes in the present.” Yvonne Denis Rosario and Dennis Alicea will discuss the work. [Tickets available at Eventbrite; please note that the ticket includes a copy of the book. Additional books will be available for purchase.]
Description: In this book, Luis Rafael Sánchez confronts racism and its terrible consequences. With his usual insight, the author delivers a collection of short essays in which he denounces, analyzes, and reflects on the “ignominy represented by racial hatred.” Twenty texts written between 1972 and 2024 make up the book, allowing us to understand the evolution and coherence of Sánchez’s thinking on a topic that is so relevant today. They expose the cultural roots of racial prejudice and the subtle ways in which they are reproduced through language, everyday behavior, music, and politics. Furthermore, Luis Rafael Sánchez calls out the injustices committed based on racism and points out the ignorance of those who, in the 21st century, continue to perpetuate it.
Luis Rafael Sánchez is the most universally and internationally recognized Puerto Rican writer. He has distinguished himself as a playwright, short story writer, novelist, essayist, and academic. He was born in 1936 in Humacao, in eastern Puerto Rico. He began his artistic career as an actor while studying and working in radio. As a playwright, he broke new ground with the publication of La pasión según Antígona Pérez in 1970. His 1976 novel La guaracha del Macho Camacho has become another canonical work. It is considered the most widely distributed Puerto Rican literary text of the 20th century.
Sánchez’s works portray Puerto Rican popular culture and address, among other themes, race/ethnicity, national identity, and sexuality. In 1964, Sánchez was appointed to the board of directors of the Theater Arts Committee of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture. He was also a professor at the University of Puerto Rico, where he taught for nearly 20 years, a professor at the City College of New York, and a Guggenheim Fellow. Along with Mario Vargas Llosa, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Puerto Rico in 2006.
For tickets and more information, see https://www.eventbrite.com/e/luis-rafael-sanchez-lanza-piel-sospechosa-tickets-1424950307729?w
For purchasing information, see https://www.planetadelibros.com/libro-piel-sospechosa-spanish-edition/423889