The late Severo Sarduy was one of the most outrageous and baroque of the Latin American Boom writers of the sixties and seventies, and here bound back to back are his two finest creations. Cobra (1972) recounts the tale of a transvestite named Cobra, star of the Lyrical Theater of the Dolls, whose obsession is to transform his/her body. She is assisted in her metamorphosis by the Madam and Pup, Cobra's dwarfish double. They too change shape, through the violent ceremonies of a motorcycle gang, into a sect of Tibetan lamas seeking to revive Tantric Buddhism. Maitreya (1978) continues the theme of metamorphosis, this time in the person of Luis Leng, a humble Cuban-Chinese cook, who becomes a reincarnation of Buddha. Through Leng, Sarduy traces the metamorphosis of two hitherto incomparable societies, Tibet at the moment of the Chinese invasion, and Cuba at the moment of revolution. Transgressing genres and genders, reveling in literal and figurative transvestism, these two novels are among the most daring achievements of postmodern Latin American fiction.

A fierce critical intelligence animates every page of "Queer Street." Its sentences are dizzying divagations. The postwar generation of queer New York has found a sophisticated bard singing 'the elders' history' ("The New York Times"). James McCourt's seminal "Queer Street" has proven unrivaled in its ability to capture the voices of a mad, bygone era. Beginning with the influx of liberated veterans into downtown New York and barreling through four decades of crisis and triumph up to the era of the floodtide of AIDS, McCourt positions his own exhilarating experience against the whirlwind history of the era. The result is a commanding and persuasive interlocking of personal, intellectual, and social history that will be read, dissected, and honored as the masterpiece it is for decades to come. A "Publishers Weekly" Best Book of 2003; a Lambda Award finalist.