– A compendium of reflections and cartoonish portraits of the urban reality of Puerto Rico and New York seen from the diaspora –
The community outreach cultural project La Goyco located on the busy Loiza street in Santurce will be the first venue from which the Puerto Rican chronicler Rafael “Rafy” Pabón will exhibit his book Surviving in the BorYo as part of the celebration of the Third Edition of the Tito Matos Fest.
Surviving like Bori, to be presented this Saturday, June 15 and Sunday, June 16, brings together reflections in the form of micro stories, vignettes and essays on the urban reality of Puerto Ricans in and outside the national territory seen from the distance imposed by Nuyork self-exile. It has more than 200 reflections/portraits alluding to issues such as life itself with all its troubles and contradictions, the nostalgia of the exile and its existential ups and downs, the eternal dilemma of wanting to return or stay, eternal crises, personal or governmental, of the cold of winter that succumbs to a bachata, of the heat of a tropic that parboils, of extended and shrunken families, of the chaotic city that overwhelms, of the country that sells itself and of those who still defend it.
Pabón is a Puerto Rican chronicler based in New York City since 2017 and began writing sensitive reflections and cartoonish portraits of social criticism of the daily life and urban reality of Puerto Rico in the 90s. Upon his arrival in New York due to the imposition of his new environment broadened his views, which he began to publish on his social networks, achieving great popularity among his readers.
Before his first publication, Pabón points out “ Surviving in the Bori arises from an obsessive need to tell, to protect my sanity, to prove what I am made of, to share my nervous and impulsive irreverence, to combat colonial leisure and governmental disaster, to challenge censorship and the uniformed life, to distance “the grievances and the ailments, in short, this book is the testimony of a life that refuses to have an expiration date.”
About Surviving like Bori The renowned plastic artist and writer Antonio “Toño” Martorell ingeniously adds on the back cover of the book:
“ It is the first book by a Puerto Rican
survivor on the other shore. Like every castaway, this Puerto Rican
he gasps, swallows, his tongue gets stuck until he takes a breath and
releases the boneless in an intoxicating saying.
This language, in addition to being loose, is threaded. They fill it and
overflowing a spicy sauce of our collective misfortunes,
the greased government corruption seasoned with
consequent cataclysms, emigrations that leave us bad
flavor and invasions that choke.
I recommend tasting little by little, otherwise you run the risk of
choke on. If following the saying, you are what you eat,
careful! There are strong flavors, bittersweet humor, bites that mix the
coarse with the sublime, a sometimes desperate aroma. Pabón
struts by serving us a language as à la carte as it is shameless,
a saying every night kept awake by poor digestion,
a shout to the brine, a tongue to lick your fingers.”
Pabón has a master’s degree in Public Administration from the University of Puerto Puerto and a Diploma of Advanced Studies (DEA) in Philosophy, Behavioral Sciences and Society from the Complutense University of Madrid.
He is also the proud father of Mariela Pabón “Checkinmela”, writer, illustrator, and comedian, and of the urban music singer and composer, Rafa Pabón.
Surviving like Bori It is published by the publishing house Secta de los Perros.
