Book Launch: "Galapagos" with the Colombian author and poet Fátima Vélez

Join NYC-based Colombian poet and writer Fátima Vélez and translator Hannah Kauders in celebrating the release of Galápagos, a poetic novel following a group of bohemian artists who are dying of AIDS as they embark on a surreal final voyage through the Galápagos Islands, their bodies cloaked in the skins of the dead. The event will be moderated by Melissa Lozada-Oliva.

Lorenzo is a painter who doesn’t paint. He spends his days watching Jeanne Moreau films, luxuriating in his partner Juan B’s bed, and swapping letters with his lovers. Then, one day, his nail falls off. Then another nail, then all of them. Thus begins a journey of decomposition that carries him from Colombia to Paris, from Paris to the French countryside, and on a final journey to the Galápagos Archipelago.

As they cruise the islands on a custom-made ship, Lorenzo and his friends and lovers drink, swap stories, and…