Reader Score
79%
79% of readers
recommend this book
"City of God is an unsparing account of devastation and empowerment in the age of AIDS. From the body's first mysterious eroticism to its final humiliation and pain, Gil Cuadros gives voice to both the beauty and sorrow of our common fate. His writing cuts like a double-edged sword--at times artful and sharp, at times unfiltered and raw. This is an awesome and haunting book."--David Trinidad
"The sensual, the expressive, the daring, the transformed become the matryrs of every era, every family. Their memoirs, heroics are our most devastating works of art. Gil Cuadros's story 'Unprotected' is a classic of AIDS fiction and deserves a place of honor in the mosaic of American writing."--Sarah Schulman
"In a voice poised between plainspokenness and urgency, Gil Cuadros writes about the remnants of love in a devastated world. The poems and stories in City of God are as dire as they are beautiful, and sharp as a blow to the body."--Bernard Cooper
"I accuse Gil Cuadros of literary seduction in the nth degree ... He makes me read on when I want to cry ... I do not want to look at his words, and yet I cannot take my eyes away. His images sooth, burn, inspire. I accuse Gil Cuadros of language abuse--his stroke of silk, his pen a bludgeon. I accuse him of heart-bashing."--Wanda Coleman
Gil Cuadros published stories and poems in Indivisible, High Risk 2, and Blood Whispers. His work is also on the compact disc, Verdict and the Violence: Poet's Response to the LA Uprising. He was awarded the 1991 Brody Literature Fellowship, and was one of the first recipients of the PEN Center USA/West grant to writers with HIV. He lived in Los Angeles until his death in 1996.
Ruben Quesada is a poet and book critic.
Late night reading in search of queer joy! Poet Gil Cuadros brings me to tears with his hybrid collection of poetry City of God (1994). https://t.co/mHIKDbsYbT
"Cuadros was only 34 when he died of AIDS in 1996. This book, a fusion of fiction and poetry, documents the lives of young men exploring their burgeoning sexuality as the AIDS crisis ripped through the queer Chicano community of Los Angeles. It’s a vital and necessary read."
John Domini is an author, translator and critic.
"Alongside pink, tangerine, & crimson sunsets, I think of you in all of LA’s prideful transgression, the erotic abject — that blend of shit & sex & steel. @RosBossGonzalez @GuernicaMag, raising a hymn to CITY OF GOD, Gil Cuadros. https://t.co/9Sb7yPQLWY