Tentacle

Plucked from her life on the streets of post-apocalyptic Santo Domingo, young maid Acilde Figueroa finds herself at the heart of a voodoo prophecy: only she can travel back in time and save the ocean – and humanity – from disaster. But first she must become the man she always was – with the help of a sacred anemone. Tentacle is an electric novel with a big appetite and a brave vision, plunging headfirst into questions of climate change, technology, Yoruba ritual, queer politics, poverty, sex, colonialism and contemporary art. Bursting with punk energy and lyricism, it’s a restless, addictive trip: The Tempest meets the telenovela.

Rita Indiana is a Dominican music composer, producer and key figure in contemporary Caribbean literature; Tentacle won the Grand Prize of the Association of Caribbean Writers in 2017, the first Spanish-language book to do so. She is the author of three collections of stories and four novels, and is a driving force in experimental Dominican popular music along with her band, Rita Indiana y los Misterios. Achy Obejas is a writer, journalist and translator. She is the author of five books of fiction and has translated Junot Díaz and Wendy Guerra, among many others. She is from Cuba and lives in California.