REVIEW
by
Professor Luis L. Pinto
Director of the Foreign Language Department
Bronx Community College, CUNY

Juan Suarez’s many profound reflections regarding mankind, our mission and purpose, our place in the history of humanity, and especially in the present and in our personal lives, are in large part the author’s expression of his sincere concerns about our behavior in relationship to the society in which we live.

In his writing, everything takes on a heart-felt lyrical impulse, a hopeful plea aimed at the conscience of loneliness, indifference, slovenliness, and the agonizing perception of the inexorable passage of time that is so characteristic man today, who refuses to listen to the warnings. This is the main theme that the author focuses on, based on his own life experiences and inspired in literature, and to which he also adds his very personal vision and deep poetic sentiment.

Very rarely do we find such a bold idea in contemporary literature to express such a profound preoccupation. From a unique point of view comes the creation of a totally unexpected character like Loretta. Here we find fervor and reflection combined to express the painful cry of a concerned conscience.

The world described by the author is the experience of daily living in any large city like Miami, New York, Los Angeles, Mexico City, or San Juan, where there is no longer time for contemplation or self-examination. Increasingly, our world is characterized by desperation, madness, and selfishness.

Yet the author does not dwell on human suffering. On the contrary, he looks to radical and permanent remedies to help us find a way out of this existential anguish we have gotten ourselves into, and which is totally our fault and not a result of any historical accident.

The great writers of Spanish language and universal literature have led us down nearly all the paths of literary text, great writers such as Cervantes, Galdós, Blasco Ibáñez, and the well-know authors of the Spanish post-Civil War period. From the pens of great Latin American authors such as Martí, Cortázar, Borges, and Isabel Allende, among other, we have read everything from the sublime to the bizarre, but just when we thought we had seen almost everything, and that practically nothing could surprise us, along comes the incomparable Loretta, the determined, imposing, and tenacious seagull with a mission that cannot be postponed.

It is not often that we find an author of contemporary literature that can so artfully combine imagination with such a unique way of focusing on a variety of subjects that are vital to our frantic everyday lives. In Revelations of a Seagull, with fervor and reflection, Juan Suárez manages to do so admirably.