{"product_id":"my-excellency-comedy-in-three-acts-paperback-3","title":"My Excellency: Comedy in Three Acts - Paperback","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eLuis Rechani Agrait\u003c\/b\u003e (Author), \u003cb\u003eWilliam Carlos Williams\u003c\/b\u003e (Translator), \u003cb\u003eJonathan Cohen\u003c\/b\u003e (Editor)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWilliam Carlos Williams's \"lost\" translation of Luis Rechani Agrait's masterpiece.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e William Carlos Williams's passion for his matrilineal Puerto Rican roots led him to visit Puerto Rico for the first time in 1941. There at a writers' conference, he befriended the playwright Luis Rechani Agrait, who gave him his play \u003ci\u003eMi señoría\u003c\/i\u003e, staged to acclaim the previous year. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eMy Excellency\u003c\/i\u003e, as Williams calls the play in his translation, is a political farce set in an \"imaginary country\" that resembles Puerto Rico during the Great Depression, with its high unemployment and labor unrest. The play focuses on the plight of an idealistic but naive man, Buenaventura Padilla, in a completely corrupt political system. Through an unscrupulous election, he becomes the nation's leader. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e The play is successful as a satire largely because of Buenaventura's hilarious language--recreated by Williams--with its pompous style combined with stunning malapropisms and clownish errors in history and grammar. The play's very title is a laughable malapropism.\u003ci\u003e My Excellency\u003c\/i\u003e shows the corrupting power of success and the tragic flaw of materialism. Driving the comedy in Williams's translation is his firm command of the play's dialogue interwoven with popular idioms in which the charm of pure nonsense abounds. This edition is Luis Rechani Agrait's debut as a playwright in English.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eLuis Rechani Agrait \u003c\/b\u003e(1902-1994) is one of Puerto Rico's major dramatists of the twentieth century whose masterpiece is \u003ci\u003eMy Excellency\u003c\/i\u003e. Its translation by William Carlos Williams is his debut in the Anglophone world. \u003cb\u003eWilliam Carlos Williams\u003c\/b\u003e (1883-1963) is a major American poet\/author of the twentieth century and an influential founder of literary modernism. His considerable work as a translator as well as a playwright has been largely overlooked. \u003cb\u003eJonathan Cohen\u003c\/b\u003e is an award-winning translator of Latin American poetry and a scholar of inter-American literature.\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 140\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.5 x 8.9 x 5.9 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e November 10, 2025\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47449274548445,"sku":"9781961056114","price":28.8,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0811\/9867\/8237\/files\/VmAQh7yR1I9781961056114_059f556e-cb9c-43c3-8f3a-8f668798341e.webp?v=1771525355","url":"https:\/\/handfulofbooks.com\/products\/my-excellency-comedy-in-three-acts-paperback-3","provider":"Handful of Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}