The GLBTRT has been reviewing books and movies in its newsletter since the early 1990s. Trace the evolution of queer publishing through these historic reviews. This review was originally published in  Vol. 5. No. 1, Spring 1993. 

The Censors. By Luisa Valenzuela. Curbstone Press, 1992. $12.95. Paper. (ISBN 0-915306-12-3)

This is an anthology of four collections of short stories. It is shorter that it seems, since it is a bilingual book: each left page is in Spanish, the right one is in English. The stories are funny, sad, fantastic, fatalistic, realistic. The lesbian/gay elements are not conspicuously part of many of them.

Many of the stories deal with feeling trapped; some characters get out alive, most do not. The language In the translations is gripping and visceral; my Spanish is too rusty to evaluate the left hand side, but the praise of Cortazar and Fuentes is high. In English the writing is close to poetry.

The stories are short-some only a page or two, most somewhat longer; the last almost a novella. They take place in Buenos Aires, in France, in small nameless fishing villages, and small deserted towns, as well as in surreal jungles. The actors are children and old men, wives and witches; drunken husbands and timorous lovers and despairing guards.

The book is suitable for any library with contemporary fiction.

Reviewed by Susan Lee Sills
University of California-Irving
Irving,CA