ÓSCAR GARCÍA SIERRA - HOUSTON, I’M THE PROBLEM
Óscar García Sierra
Houston, I'm the Problem
Translated from Spanish by
CARMEN YUS QUINTERO
$20.00
Bilingual Edition
120 pages
November 14, 2023
ISBN 978-1-954218-18-5
Distributed by Asterism (US) and Turnaround Publisher Services (UK & EU)
BIOS
ÓSCAR GARCÍA SIERRA was born in León, Spain, in 1994. He studied Spanish, Language and Literature at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, and he published his first book, Houston, yo soy el problema, in 2016. His poetry is part of Spain’s alternative literature, and his work has appeared in the alt/lit journal New Wave Vomit, the Tumblr Ciudades Esqueleto, the news and media website Playground and the poetry magazine Revista tn, among others. His latest book, Facendera, was published in May 2022.
CARMEN YUS QUINTERO was born in Huelva, Spain in 1996. She is a Spanish and English teacher and translator. She has a bachelor’s degree in Translation and Interpreting, a MA in Spanish Studies, and a MA in Education. In 2021, some of her translations of Óscar García’s work were published in New Poetry in Translation. Her article “Posibilidades de la virtualidad” was also published the same year in Falso Mutis. Her interests include literary translation, education and performing arts.
Óscar García Sierra
Houston, I’m the Problem
Translated from Spanish by
CARMEN YUS QUINTERO
The first English-language collection of Óscar García Sierra, one of Spain’s most relevant young authors, performs and interrogates the desires and disillusionments of millennial culture.
García Sierra, one of the central figures of the Spanish young literature movement, constructs bold, strange, uncomfortable poems from everyday life, touching on mental illness, drugs, and heartbreak. His work appears in the alt-lit journal New Wave Vomit, the Tumblr Ciudades Esqueleto, Playground and Revista tn, among others. His first novel, Facendera, has brought him broad critical acclaim in Spain. Houston, I’m the Problem, a selection from his first poetry collection topped off with more recent poems, is the first of his books to appear in English translation.
“In Houston, I’m The Problem, the long line is made new again in all its inertia and obsession. Óscar García Sierra’s recursive poems hoard and catalog the anxieties of language and living, revealing the ways in which outside forces “self” us. They are searching systems, sending out dispatches in an atmosphere of desire and disappointment under capitalism. I was thrilled to be reunited with such endangered phrases as “I feel like,” “I feel as if,” “I hope,” “I wish,” “I want,” and “I think” in this collection. Medicated, anaphoric, depressed, dryly humorous, and insistent, these pop-nihilist poems are so full, you can’t help but think of them as beautiful holes dragging themselves through the wreckage of the page. I feel as though I’ve been hooked up to an IV of something I didn’t know I was lacking.” —Emily Skillings
“The achievement of Houston, I’m The Problem, resides in García’s creation of a poetic universe of his own, which rises up to claim a new creative path where the borders between the arts start to shake.” —Laura Villar, Compostimes
“García Sierra uses long, expansive lines to craft a personal story of disenchantment with the world around him and the uncertain future that lies ahead.” —Leo Boix, Morning Star
BIOS
ÓSCAR GARCÍA SIERRA was born in León, Spain, in 1994. He studied Spanish, Language and Literature at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, and he published his first book, Houston, yo soy el problema, in 2016. His poetry is part of Spain’s alternative literature, and his work has appeared in the alt/lit journal New Wave Vomit, the Tumblr Ciudades Esqueleto, the news and media website Playground and the poetry magazine Revista tn, among others. His latest book, Facendera, was published in May, 2022.
CARMEN YUS QUINTERO was born in Huelva, Spain in 1996. She is a Spanish and English teacher and translator. She has a bachelor’s degree in Translation and Interpreting, a MA in Spanish Studies, and a MA in Education. In 2021, some of her translations of Óscar García’s work were published in New Poetry in Translation. Her article “Posibilidades de la virtualidad” was also published the same year in Falso Mutis. Her interests include literary translation, education and performing arts.
PRESS
Bilingual Edition
120 pages
November 14, 2023
ISBN 978-1-954218-18-5
Distributed by Small Press Distribution (US) and Turnaround Publisher Services (UK & EU)
