Translating New Brown by Lolan Buhain Sevilla

By far, the best thing I read over my winter break was Lolan Buhain Sevilla's book, Translating New Brown. I stumbled over it at Blacklava when I was shopping for tunes by MC Kiwi.

It's a slim volume, totaling just 70 pages, but as a butch pinay publication, its weight lies beyond its page total. Sevilla tackles themes of love (hopeful, unrequited, fulfilled), butch identity, sexual and physical abuse, all steeped in the consciousness of a "2nd generation butch pinay with philippine roots, san diego origins and san francisco beginnings" (70). Definitely worth checking out.

If I'm lucky, maybe next time I'm back in SF I'll actually get to see Kreatibo, a queer pinay artist collective Sevilla is a founding member of...in the mean time, I hope those who are in the area take full advantage.