Meet the author: Justin Torres
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Meet the author
The meetings with writers at Passa Porta, prepared with passion, courage and thoroughness, are more than simply the presentation of literary works. We seek to achieve a genuine connection between writer and reader, and among readers themselves.
Go to overviewBorn in 1980 in New York State, Justin Torres published his work in Granta and The New Yorker before exploding onto the literary scene with We the Animals, a veritable revelation in the United States. In this impressive first novel, which was both a critical and a commercial success, Justin Torres follows a small pack of brothers left to their own devices as he imposes a language, a rhythm, an electric lyricism. Ten years of silence followed … before the release last year of Blackouts, winner of the National Book Award 2024.
‘I came to the Palace because the man I sought kept a room there … He was near death, and I would have promised him anything.’ The narrator of Blackouts arrives at a mysterious place, a residence in the middle of the desert that is home to a large queer community. There he meets Juan, a fascinating and charismatic older figure. The two men had formed a steadfast friendship a few years earlier in a psychiatric hospital.
Blacking out
A long, mysterious and highly cinematographic dialogue between the two men begins, culminating in a promise. For Juan entrusts his partner with a mission: to continue his research into Jan Gay, an incredible anthropologist from the early twentieth century, whose project to document lesbian life was scorned and long obliterated from modern understanding of the history of homosexual women.
Blending real archives and invented memories – photos, articles and redacted pages ripped from Jan Gay’s encyclopedia – Justin Torres has written a poetic and singularly haunting hybrid novel, restoring the dignity of men and women by telling their stories. This is a book that will leave its mark.
Praise for Blackouts:
Tope Folarin, The Atlantic
Hugh Ryan, The New York Times
Maureen Corrigan, NPR
Org. Passa Porta, festival America.
picture © JJ Geiger
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