Brookline Books/Lumen Editions

Urban Oracles 

Fall 1999 
ISBN 1-57129-034-6 $15.95  

In this collection of stories, Mayra Santos-Febres draws us into a world pulsing with desires. And she never allows us to feel that we are strangers looking in. We are not granted the comfort of distant analysis. These are vignettes that expand into narratives; the words that flow from visceral passions of her characters become stories as we watch those needs and desires flower.

We are taken into the very essence of the characters, and yet Santos-Febres does not want us to feel too comfortable with these tales; we are forced to understand and acknowledge the uncomfortable places where they sometimes lead. She presents us with a rich and vital world, a world which refuses to be limited to the realm of the socially acceptable. The world we find ourselves in as we read these stories is our own world as we wish it was: simple, honest, passionate, fearless.