Pragmatic Liberation and the Politics of Puerto Rican Diasporic Drama

2025 ATHE Outstanding Book Award Finalist2025 ATDS John W. Frick Book Award Finalist2025 MLA Prize in U.S. Latina and Latino and Chicana and Chicano Literary and Cultural Studies Honorable MentionPragmatic Liberation and the Politics of Puerto Rican Diasporic Drama explores the work of a unique group of playwrights—Puerto Rican dramatists writing in the United States—who offer a model of political engagement. As members of the Puerto Rican diaspora, they have a heightened awareness of the systematic discrimination and the colonial citizenship created by Puerto Rico’s territorial status. Pragmatic Liberation analyzes the work of established playwrights as well as work that has previously received little attention in the world of theater studies, including René Marqués’s Palm Sunday. The book demonstrates the strategies these playwrights use to model a nuanced way of moving toward liberation while being sensitive to the potential impact these actions might have on those closest to us. This is a crucially important model that needs more attention in our currently polarized political moment.