SHAKTI CASTRO | LA RESPUESTA
J.L. Torres is a Puerto Rico-born, Bronx-raised writer, poet, and professor of literature at Plattsburgh State University. He is one of the co-founders of the Saranac Review, and currently its Editor. His latest book, The Accidental Native, was published in Fall 2013. I recently got the opportunity to speak with him about his literary inspirations and goals and what it’s like to be a Puerto Rican, aquí y allá.
SC: You’ve previously published short fiction, poetry and edited a text on Puerto Rican literature. How long have you had a novel in you waiting to be written?
JLT: It took seven years to write The Accidental Native, working on it on and off. Working on this novel has been a real learning experience. I feel that I’m really a short fiction writer. [Though] I still want to write stories, I also wanted to write a novel and test myself doing that. Writing a short story you have a different perspective; a novel is a completely different animal.
SC: What were your literary inspirations growing up in The Bronx? What set you down the path of literature?
JLT: Like many other Latina/o writers of my generation, I was not introduced to Latina/o writers. There was no such thing as a “Latino Lit course.” I was pretty ignorant of Latino writers, that they even existed. Piri Thomas was definitely one of my early inspirations. I did not live the life he lived, but I could still identify with many of the things in Down These Mean Streets, his language, the fact that he was writing about Puerto Ricans, the community, that was unheard of. Before him, Bernard Malamud gave me a sense that you could write about ethnicity, a particular cultural collective. Everything before that was Anglo, everyone was White. What was being sold was an Anglo-centric sense of what is “American”. Also, African American writers. James Baldwin was a big one for me. I would put Piri, Malamud, and Baldwin down as influences and also, all those amazing Latin American writers of the Boom helped pave the way for my desire to write.
SC: The women in Rennie’s life are a driving force in the novel. How much of that was a conscious effort on your part?
JLT: I consider myself a feminist. I’ve always had strong women in my life, including my wife. I don’t think that Latinas need to be told how to write Latina characters. Latino writers, on the other hand, could learn something…..>>READ MORE
