Reflections on a Puerto Rican Life: Benjy Lopez: A Picaresque Tale of Emigration and Return

Hailed as a "masterpiece" in Newsweek magazine by Yale art historian Robert Ferris Thompson, the life history of Benjy Lopez is now available in an expanded edition which includes Benjy Lopez's return and life in Puerto Rico as a successful businessman. This engaging autobiographical account is a pioneering vision exposing the half-truth that the typi­cal experience of the ordinary Puerto Rican, particularly of the Puerto Rican transposed to New York City, is exclusively defined by priva­tion, fear, prejudice, and culture shock. In so doing, Barry B. Levine successfully combats the myth of the victimized immigrant, proposing a picaresque sociology that acknowledges an actor's agency even under the most difficult circumstances.

Barry B. Levine, Florida International Uni­versity, was for twenty years the editor of Caribbean Review, and authored several books including "The Caribbean Exodus," and "The New Cuban Presence in the Caribbean,".<br /><br />Barry B. Levine, Florida International Uni­versity, was for twenty years the editor of Caribbean Review, and authored several books including "The Caribbean Exodus," and "The New Cuban Presence in the Caribbean,". Prologue by Robert Farris Thompson, author of "Tango: The Art History of Love"