Reasons (not) to Dance by Jose Angel Araguz

This collection of prose poems and flash fictions imaginatively explores moments of hesitation and celebration. In the tradition of the Latin American microcuento as practiced by Julio Cortázar, Eduardo Galeano, and Augosto Monterroso, these short prose pieces are at turns fabulistic and true to life, making hard statements on unemployment, race, and obsession through characters out of fairy tales and religion as well as history and nature. Through persona and personal revelation, these pieces present the storyteller as world-maker with all the darkness and joy that can be accessed through language.