{"product_id":"my-excellency-luis-rechani-agrait","title":"MY EXCELLENCY - Luis Rechani Agrait","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eComedy on Three Acts\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTranslated by William Carlos Williams\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEdited and with Introduction by Jonathan Cohen\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWith a Foreword by Julio Marzán\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWith an Afterword by José Luis Ramos Escobar\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWilliams Carlos Williams’s “lost” translation of Luis Rechani Agrait’s masterpiece.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWilliam Carlos Williams’s passion for his matrilineal Puerto Rican roots led him to visit Puerto Rico for the first time in 1941. There at a writers’ conference, he befriended the playwright Luis Rechani Agrait, who gave him his play \u003cem\u003eMi señoría\u003c\/em\u003e, staged to acclaim the previous year.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMy Excellency\u003c\/em\u003e, as Williams calls the play in his translation, is a political farce set in an “imaginary country” that resembles Puerto Rico during the Great Depression, with its high unemployment and labor unrest. The play focuses on the plight of an idealistic but naive man, Buenaventura Padilla, in a completely corrupt political system. Through an unscrupulous election he becomes the nation’s leader.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe play is successful as a satire largely because of Buenaventura’s hilarious language—recreated by Williams—with its pompous style combined with stunning malapropisms and clownish errors in history and grammar. The play’s very title is a laughable malapropism. My Excellency shows the corrupting power of success and the tragic flaw of materialism. Driving the comedy in Williams’s translation is his firm command of the play’s dialogue interwoven with pplayopular idioms in which the charm of pure nonsense abounds. This edition is Luis Rechani Agrait’s debut as a playwright in English.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Swan Isle Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48163463037163,"sku":null,"price":22.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0359\/8286\/8620\/files\/My-Excellency-Cover.jpg?v=1777558263","url":"https:\/\/librerialaberintopr.com\/products\/my-excellency-luis-rechani-agrait","provider":"Libreria Laberinto","version":"1.0","type":"link"}