Waiting for Godínez by Daniel A Olivas
By the author of Chicano Frankenstein, this is "Waiting for Godot" in a modern retelling with Borderlands immigration and ICE in the mix. Waiting for Godínez has been workshopped in Los Angeles and New York, had a world premiere in Sacramento, California, and is being shopped to Los Angeles, Arizona, and New Mexico stages. Olivas’s extraordinary reimagining of a classic play lays bare the destructive and brutalizing effects of the United States’ anti-immigration policy on undocumented immigrants and their families. In Waiting for Godínez, the forever-waiting characters of Estragon and Vladimir are embodied in Jesús and Isabel, two Mexican friends living in the States. Each night Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents kidnap Jesús and throw him into a cage intending to deport him. But the agents forget to lock the cage, so Jesús escapes and makes his way back to Isabel as they wait for the mysterious Godínez in a city park. At one point Isabel looks upon her exhausted friend and laments, “What harm have you done to them? You are as much of this country as you are of México. But you are not home in either place. Ni de aquí, ni de allá.” Waiting for Godínez humanizes the plight undocumented people face in a country that both needs and disdains them. Through a darkly comic absurdist lens, it implores us to reconsider this country’s policies in light of the fact that we are all human and deserve respect and dignity as we each try to make our way in a confusing and often indifferent world."Olivas has written, in eighty taut pages, a play that feels at once timeless and piercingly contemporary" - Gerald A. Padilla, Latino Book Review
“Waiting for Godínez invites Beckett’s classic play into the twenty-first century, carving out a place for women’s voices in the story while masterfully illuminating the Latina/o immigrant experience through notions of identity, belonging, memory, and hope using quick-as-a-whip language, laugh-out-loud absurdity, tragedy that will grip your heart, and masterfully crafted references to the original text.” - Nicole C. Limón, cocreator of Just a Pinch: A Uterus Play
Daniel A. Olivas is an attorney, playwright, novelist, short-story writer, poet, and book critic. He is the editor of two anthologies and the author of twelve books including Chicano Frankenstein: A Novel and How to Date a Flying Mexican: New and Collected Stories.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780826368447 |
| ISBN 10 | 0826368441 |
| Title | Waiting for Godínez |
| Author | Daniel A Olivas |
| Series | Encrucijadas Crossroads Series |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | University of New Mexico Press |
| Year published | 2025-09-02 |
| Number of pages | 80 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |