Sirena Selena A Novel

Somewhere between The Blue Angel and Kiss of the Spider Woman rises the legend of Sirena Selena, the diva-siren of the Caribbean whose boleros seduce and torment whoever dares listen.One evening while drugged out of his mind and picking over garbage in the backstreets of San Juan, a fifteen-year-old homeless boy is singing boleros in a mesmerizing voice that transfixes anyone who listens. Hearing the silken melodies coming from the alley behind her nightclub, drag queen Martha Divine is convinced that the boy's uncanny beauty and irresistible voice will be her ticket to fame and fortune.And so is born the legendary performer known as Sirena Selena. AUTHORBIO: Mayra Santos-Febres is Associate Professor of Literature at the University of Puerto Rico. She has published two books of poetry to wide acclaim, and her short stories have won many prizes including the 1994 Letras de Oro Prize from the University of Miami, and the 1997 Juan Rulfo Prize, awarded by Radio Sarandi in Paris. In 1997 her two collections of short fiction were translated into English under the title Urban Oracles.Stephen Lytle has translated Laura Restrepo's Leopard in the Sun, Javier Gonzales Rubio's Loving You Was My Undoing, and Laura Esquivel's Intimate Succulencies, among others. He lives in Los Angeles, California.

Mayra Santos-Febres is Associate Professor of Literature at the University of Puerto Rico. She has published two books of poetry, and her short stories have won many prizes, including the 1994 Letras de Oro Prize from the University of Miami and the 1997 Juan Rulfo Prize, awarded by Radio Sarandi in Paris. In 1997 her two collections of short fiction were translated into English under the title Urban Oracles.

Stephen Lyttle has translated Laura Restrepo's Leopard in the Sun, Javier Gonzales Rubio's Loving You Was My Undoing, and Laura Esquivel's Intimate Succulencies, among others. He lives in Los Angeles.

"Santos-Febres examines questions of sexuality and power . . . blend[ing] lyrical hyperbole with social observation . . . in her lush and tragicomic first novel." --The New York Times Book Review

"This impishly sensual novel is an often hilarious anatomy of gender confusion and reminiscent of the classic silent film The Blue Angel . . . The boy-girl Selena is as sweetly bedazzled as any hero-heroine out of a Shakespearean comedy." --Kirkus Review

"What Puig did to transform the way we think of American film, Santos-Febres has managed for Latin music. Sirena is fantastic! Like Cesaria Evora she'll come to haunt you, like Marc Anthony she'll steal your heart. The Grammys will have to invent a new category -- Best Album of the Year in Fiction." --Laura Esquivel, author of Like Water for Chocolate and The Law of Love