Giannina Braschi - United States of Banana (2011)

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The United States of America will become the United States of Banana. And Puerto Rico will be the first half-and-half banana republic state incorporated that will secede from the union. Then will come Liberty Island, then Mississippi Burning, Texas BBQ, Kentucky Fried Chicken—all of them—New York Yankees, Jersey Devils—you name it—will want to break apart—and demand a separation—a divorce. Things will not go well for the banana republic when the shackles and chains of democracy break loose and unleash the dogs of war. Separation—divorce—disintegration of subject matters that don't matter anymore—only verbs—actions. Americans will walk like chickens with their heads cut off.

Giannina Braschi
This is a vicious circle. This is the fishmarket. This is working for survival. This is survival of the fastest. This is the Darwinist capital of the capitalist world. A head afraid is a head haunted. A head haunted is a head hunted. Run for your life. Run from the guillotine to a head hunter who saves your head and raises your salary—so you'll be caught in the red of the fishmarket buying gadgets to distract your fragile imagination that is cut in the red market of blood—running and escaping—running again—changing your resume to update the fear you feel of being unemployed tomorrow—in the streets—and from there to welfare—and from there to begging.

Giannina Braschi
It's the end of the world. I was excited by the whole situation. Well, if everybody is going to die, die hard, shit, but what do I know? Is this an atomic bomb—the end of the world—the end of the millennium? No more fear of being fired—for typos or tardiness—digressions or recessions—and what a way of being fired—bursting into flames—without two weeks notice—and without six months of unemployment—and without sick leave, vacation, or comp time—without a word of what was to come—on a glorious morning—when nature ran indifferent to the course of man—there came a point when that sunny sky turned into a hellhole of a night—with papers, computers, windows, bricks, bodies falling, and people running and screaming...

Giannina Braschi
English is a language of mass destruction. Lady Macbeth is a queen of mass destruction. Lear is a king of mass destruction. Hamlet is a prince of mass destruction. Shakespeare is a bard of mass destruction. And Moby Dick is a whale of mass destruction. Why are you a culture of death and destruction? Why do you obliterate villages, cities, and civilizations with your language of mass destruction? Is the destruction worth the destruction? For what purpose did you destroy my language? To impose the sovereignty of your rule of law with weapons of mass destruction—to then say: —I offer you my lifesaver. Now, we can communicate in the same language. English only, please.

Giannina Braschi
Originality is going back to the place where you were what you were—and finding an empty chair. Would you gladly sit on it? No, thank you. It is empty for a reason. That's where my ass was. Not where my head is now.

Giannina Braschi
When the Twin Towers fell—I felt a dentist had pulled out my two front teeth. I could not laugh anymore. And I have the smile of a smiling damned villain. But I also felt the hole in my mouth became a garage, and entering that garage were terrorists in trucks full of explosives and French diplomats—to fuck us more with other nations—to run over our dead bodies.

Giannina Braschi
Metaphors and Similes are the beginning of the democratic system of envy.

Giannina Braschi
Banks are the temples of America. This is a holy war. Our economy is our religion.

Giannina Braschi
The suicide bomber is an explosion of a contradiction in its paradox, victim and victimizer, yin and yang, two sides of the coin, fire bomb and fire extinguisher, prosecutor and defendant, hangman and hanged.

Giannina Braschi
I fear freedom. I, above all, fear the freedom that is above all feardom.

Giannina Braschi