Born Jose Miguel Sanchez Gomez, Yoss assumed his pen name in
1988, when he won the Premio David in the science fiction category
for Timshel. Together with his peculiar pseudonym, the author's
aesthetic of an impentinent rocker has allowed him to stand out
amongst his fellow Cuban writers. Earning a degree in Biology in
1991, he went on to graduate from the first ever course on
Narrative Techniques at the Onelio Jorge Cardoso Center of Literary
Training, in the year 1999. Today, Yoss writes both realistic and
science fiction works. Alongside these novels, the author produces
essays, reviews, and compilations, and actively promotes the Cuban
science fiction literary workshops, Espiral and Espacio
Abierto.
When he isn't translating, David Frye teaches Latin American
culture and society at the University of Michigan. Translations
include First New Chronicle and Good Government by
Guaman Poma de Ayala (Peru, 1615); The Mangy Parrot by Jose
Joaquin Fernandez de Lizardi (Mexico, 1816), for which he received
a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship; Writing across
Cultures: Narrative Transculturation in Latin America by Angel
Rama (Uruguay, 1982), and several Cuban and Spanish novels and
poems.
"Intergalactic space travel meets outrageous, biting satire in
Super Extra Grande . . . Its author, Jose Miguel Sanchez
Gomez, who writes under the pen name Yoss, is one of the most
celebrated-and controversial-Cuban writers of science fiction . . .
Reminiscent of Douglas Adams-but even more so, the satire of
Rabelais and Swift-Yoss mocks racist and sexist stereotypes while
critiquing Western environmental policies via his enormous,
bumbling narrator who somehow manages to save the day."
-Nancy Hightower, The Washington Post
"A lighthearted space-opera adventure by Cuban author Yoss . . .
This novel's madcap tone is very similar to Douglas Adams'-so much
so that it's almost impossible to avoid drawing such comparisons
(although Adams didn't joke about oral sex with aliens, as Yoss
does here). As in Adams' works, the galaxy's species are
terrifically alien, sporting six breasts and no teeth or breathing
methane instead of oxygen. There are also lots of fun references
and wordplay throughout the book: the giant amoebas, for example,
live on planet Brobdingnag, which orbits a star called Swift-3,
while Jan Amos Sangan Dongo is a riff on sangandongo, Cuban slang
for 'really big.' But possibly the most enjoyable aspect of this
strange world is that it takes place in a future in which an
Ecuadorean Jesuit priest discovers faster-than-light travel, and
the first space flight proving his theory is announced by unfurling
a banner on Mars that reads 'Suck on this, dumb-ass gringos!' Also,
the lingua franca of this future is Spanglish, and all the dialogue
appealingly follows suit: 'el amor-don't we know it bien!-goes
beyond lo fisico, even lo quimico. Far beyond.' An exceptionally
enjoyable comic tale set in a fully realized, firmly
science-fictional universe."
- Kirkus, Starred Review
"Science fiction is a place where minority authors have brilliantly
mixed the possibilities of the future with the sociopolitical
problems of their time. Everything from politics and sexism to
racism and the silence of the subaltern (the one Gayatri
Chakravorty Spivak wrote about) have been explored within the
context of a narrative that takes place in a fictional future.
Cuban science fiction author Yoss' Super Extra Grande does
all these things . . . [Yoss] marries hard science with wild
invention and throws that mix into a hilarious, politically and
sexually charged universe where all alien races have stopped being
unknown to each other. The result is a witty narrative that proves
that, when done right, science fiction can be the most entertaining
genre even when delivering a message . . . Spanglish dialogue
enriches the narrative and makes it crackle with authenticity . . .
Kudos must be given to translator David Frye for his outstanding
work . . . Besides the space it creates to discuss alternate
realities, the best science fiction is that which delivers on the
promise of its name, and Yoss pulls it off with flying colors in
part thanks to his degree in biology and in part thank to his
fearless approach to creation. The variety of creatures he crafted
for this relatively short novel is a testament to a powerful
imagination, and the fact that he managed to flawlessly merge them
with a larger narrative without bogging down the action is proof
that he is a talented storyteller. Furthermore, Yoss' work deserves
attention because regardless of what he does in the story, he
always keeps his focus on subverting the order of things . . . Yoss
tackles science fiction with the attitude of a rock star, and he
has the talent to make even his wildest ideas work. Super Extra
Grande follows the parodic tradition of Cuban science fiction
and treads new grounds in terms of the amount of imagined science
and fauna found in its pages. This is a narrative in which anything
is possible, love and desire are thrown into the tumultuous new
territory of interspecies relationships, and Spanglish is the
unifying language of the galaxy. In other words, this is science
fiction at its best: wildly imaginative, revolutionary, full of
strange creatures, and a lot of fun to read."
-Gabino Iglesias, PANK Magazine
"Super Extra Grande is another funny critique about Western
politics . . . For readers in Cuba, Yoss's new novel about
exploring the insides of leviathan beasts could remind them of
their independence leader Jose Marti. The poet described living in
America as the experience of a very small person living inside of a
much bigger animal. And for Latinos, Super Extra Grande
could similarly be a story about immigrant families who have to dig
in the bowels of a much larger United States to find their piece of
the American dream . . . In this sense, Super Extra Grande
is an enormous mirror that unearths deep roots connecting Cuba with
the United States and the universe."
-Arturo Conde, NBC News Latino
"Yoss's latest novel Super Extra Grande is a work of welcome
imagination, steeped in science and imbued with satire and
philosophy . . . One of the most endearing elements of the novel is
the use of Spanglish that is peppered throughout . . . [speaking to
a] highly probable future in which jumbled English and Spanish is
an embraced universal dialect. Not unlike his main character, it's
evident that Yoss-as an artist and cultural anthropologist-is
intent on doing the dirty work, on digging through the ugly insides
of human identity in order to arrive at something pure and lasting.
I kept imagining the novel causing a stir during the peak of Fidel
Castro's reign, the dictator pacing like mad and shouting "Que
locura!" at the mention of multisex species and atomic fusion. But
Yoss seems more concerned with looking ahead. And in Super Extra
Grande, he reconfirms that a future without a literature of the
future is really no future at all."
-Juan Vidal, NPR Books
"This newly translated novel by Yoss, considered one of the masters
of contemporary Cuban sci-fi, transports us to a bizarre vision of
the far future, where humanity has mastered space travel and
discovered it is but one small corner of a vast, very strange
intergalactic tapestry (think planet-sized amoebas, talking
lizards, and female creatures that exist, mantis-like, on
"substances" from the males of the species). Odder still, our hero
is Jan Amos Sangan Dongo, an interspecies veterinarian tasked with
hunting down a giant creature that has swallowed two Galactic
Community ambassadors-each of whom Jan happens to have slept
with-before the fragile peace between the galaxy's seven sentient
species collapses."
-Joel Cunningham, Barnes and Noble Best Science Fiction &
Fantasy of 2016
"To better understand Cuba's recent zeitgeist, adventurous readers
need not confine themselves to hardcore realism or to visual
nostalgia. Instead, they could head to the science fiction section,
where they would find two recently published novels by Yoss (ne
Jose Miguel Sanchez Gomez): A Planet for Rent (Restless
Books, 2015) and Super Extra Grande (Restless Books, 2016),
both translated from Spanish by David Frye. In choosing Yoss's work
to inaugurate their Cuban science fiction series, Restless Books
could not have picked a better ambassador for introducing the Cuban
variant of the genre to a North American audience. A brawny,
gregarious rockero who looks like he just walked off the set of a
Van Halen video, circa 1984, Yoss is one of the most visible
members of Cuba's small but dynamic sci-fi scene. He is also one of
the more prolific writers on the island, having published more than
15 novels and books of short stories, and two books of critical
essays, as well as numerous anthologies of science fiction and
fantasy short stories . . . As someone who has made his living as a
writer since 1988, when his novel Timshel won Cuba's David
Prize for first-time authors, he has been a keen observer of Cuban
society (and its literature) for almost three decades . . . Yoss's
more recent novel imagines a world in which Earth is just one part
of a dynamic, complicated universe, in which interplanetary love
and understanding exists, and in which even an unknown large animal
vet can resolve an intergalactic political crisis. In short, it
dares us to hope for a universe in which all things (super extra)
large and small can find their place."
-Emily Maguire, Los Angeles Review of Books
"Get ready to enter the world of the fantastic, phenomenal and
downright freaky. If you like huge space monsters,
faster-than-light travel, erotic six-breasted aliens with strange
reproductive habits, atomic blasts, gastrointestinal diseases and
interplanetary warfare, then this is the book for you . . . It
sounds crazy doesn't it? And it really is. This book is utterly
unlike any other sci-fi novel you will have read before . . . The
marvelous thing with writing about the future is you can really let
your imagination run wild and Yoss certainly decided take full
advantage of this poetic license."
-Jade Fell, Engineering & Technology Magazine
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