Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro has published several books that foster a debate on Afro-identity and sexual diversity. Arroyo Pizarro directs the Department of Afro-Puerto Rican Studies, a creative writing performance project hosted by the Cátedra de Mujeres Negras Ancestrales. The Spanish publication of Negras received the Puerto Rico PEN Club National Award for short fiction. Arroyo Pizarro also received the National Short Story Prize awarded by the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture (2012; 2015) and the Institute of Puerto Rican Literature National Prize (2008). In the novels Caparazones, Lesbofilias, and Violeta, Arroyo Pizarro explores transgression from an lesbian perspective. Her work has been translated into several languages.

Alejandro Álvarez Nieves is a writer, translator, and professor. He is the author of the poetry anthologies El proceso traductor (AC, 2012) and Quiebre de armas (Trabalis, 2018), in addition to the short story collection Galería de comandos (Alayubia, 2019). He was the general programmer of San Juan's Festival de la Palabra until 2018. Prof. Álvarez Nieves has translated for several literary magazines, such as World Poetry and Poetry Review, as well as international publishers, such as Temas de Hoy. His Spanish translation of Wild Beauty, Belleza Salvaje, by Ntozake Shange (Atria, 2017), earned him the International Latino Book Award in 2018, in the Spanish translation category. Alejandro Álvarez Nieves is an assistant professor in the Graduate Program in Translation at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus.

This heart wrenching anthology chronicles the passage of slaves from Africa to the Caribbean as seen through the eyes of an enslaved woman. Her journey dramatizes a life of quiet resistance. A true gem.--Nemir Matos Cintrón

This book dislodges all the foundations of knowledge that have been instilled in us from primary schools. It is impossible that upon reading it, your thoughts continue unchanged. These stories will make you see that "slavery has many names." I recommend Negras; without a doubt the best I have read, on this topic, in a long time.--Luis Arroyo

Yolanda's path reflects the journey that many of us Black women have embarked upon in search of our origins. It is the journey Saidiya Hartman recounted in Lose your Mother, set on surveying "an itinerary of destruction from the coast to the savanna," excavating the wounds of our enslaved ancestors.--Odette Casamayor Cisneros

Astounding. . . The language is at once lyrical and matter-of-fact, making this book unlike anything else I have read.--Nadia Kalman "Words Without Borders"