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WORK TITLE: The Ruins: A Novel
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: Dubai
STATE:
COUNTRY: United Arab Emirates
NATIONALITY:
https://www.zu.ac.ae/main/en/colleges/colleges/__college_of_humanities_and_social_sciences/faculty_and_staff/_dxb/_dss/_profiles/Rafael_Reyes-Ruiz.aspx * http://www.worldcat.org/title/ruins-a-novel/oclc/881218727&referer=brief_results * http://www.latinobookreview.com/rafael-reyes-ruiz—the-ruins.html
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Male.
EDUCATION:California State University, B.A., 1986; New School for Social Research, Ph.D., 2001.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer. Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, University of California, San Diego, research associate, 2003–; Zayed University, associate professor, 2004–; Encounters: An International Journal for the Study of Culture and Society, editor and co-founder; Zayed University Press, editorial committee.
MEMBER:Council of Editors of Learned Journals, member, 2010–; “New Trends in Globalization” series, editorial board member; Journal of Anthropology and Archeology, editorial board member.
WRITINGS
“Negotiating Latino Social Space in Japan,” Asian Journal of Latin American Studies Volume 26 Number 4, 2013, p. 1-18; “El Ámbito Cultural Latino en Japón,” Crítica Contemporánea, Revista de Teoría Política volume 1 number 2, 2012, p. 1–16.
SIDELIGHTS
Rafael Reyes-Ruiz is a writer, anthropologist, and professor. Reyes-Ruiz received his B.A. from California State University and his Ph.D. from the New School for Social Research. He is a research associate at the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California, San Diego and is an associate professor at Zayed University in Dubai. Reyez-Ruiz is an editor for and co-founder of Encounters: An International Journal for the Study of Culture and Society and is on the editorial committee of Zayed University Press. Reyes-Ruiz’ anthropological specialization focuses on transnational flows between the Americas and Japan. He lives in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Reyes-Ruiz’ The Ruins is a fictional work about Japanese history professor Tomas Rodrigues. Rodrigues teaches at a Roman Catholic university in Tokyo and is currently studying Portuguese diaspora throughout Asia. The book focuses on three areas of Rodrigues’ life: his career, his current research, and his former love.
Rodrigues is plagued by concerns about his academic career and job security at the institute. He is a Portuguese-Colombian with Australian citizenship, and regularly faces stigma in Japan because he is a foreigner. As he experiences this stigma, he also researches it, investigating the history of Portuguese settlers in Japan. As his research unfolds, Rodrigues makes comparisons between his research and his life, and at times mistakes one for the other.
The theme of mistaking fact and fiction reoccurs with Rodrigues’ memories of his former lover, Monica Klaseen. After seeing a woman at an airport that looks like the woman, Rodrigues faints and forgets the incident. When he returns to his life at the university, however, he cannot get memories of Klaseen out of his mind. Despite the other pulls that demand Rodrigues attention, including his new research project, department bureaucracy, and his fragile relationship with his ex-wife, he begins an investigation into the woman he saw at the airport. He believes the woman was, in fact, Klaseen, the lover he has not seen in twenty years. As Rodrigues delves into his own past, memory, history, and the reliability of both become intertwined.
A contributor to Kirkus Reviews described the book as “a stylish, jampacked tale that examines love, memory, and international identity,” while a contributor to Latino Book Review website wrote, “Reyes-Ruiz provides readers with harmonic images of several cities and cultures around the world while unraveling a plot of mystery and self-search with themes of love, loss and acceptance.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 2017, review of The Ruins.
ONLINE
Latino Book Review, http://www.latinobookreview.com/ (April 13, 2017), review of The Ruins.
Dr. Rafael Reyes-Ruiz
Associate Professor
B.A. California State University, 1986.
Ph.D. New School for Social Research, New York, 2001.
Year Joined Zayed University: 2004
Affiliations & Collaboration:
Research Associate, Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, University of California, San Diego, 2003–present.
Bio
Rafael Reyes-Ruiz is an anthropologist, specializing in transnational flows between the Americas and Japan. His publications include articles in peer-reviewed journals, chapters in edited books, short stories in academic and literary magazines, and two versions of a novel, one in English, one in Spanish. His creative work also includes the direction and production of a documentary on the Latin American community in Japan. He is the editor of Encounters: An International Journal for the Study of Culture and Society
, a periodical he co-founded in 2009.
Office
Dubai Campus, CL1-011
Phone:
+9714 4021314
Email:
Rafael.reyesruiz@zu.ac.ae
Teaching Areas
Cultural Theory, Globalization, Cultural Studies, Visual Anthropology, Japan, Latin America.
Research and Professional Activities
1) Editor of
Encounters: An International Journal for the Study of Culture and Society
. Responsibilities include making all editorial and administrative decisions.
2) Editorial Committee, Zayed University Press.
3)
Member of the Editorial Board, “New Trends in Globalization” series, Palgrave Macmillan, April 2010.
4) Member of the Council of Editors of Learned Journals, April 2010.
5)
Member of the Editorial Board
, Antipoda: Revista de Antropologia y Arqueologia
, (Journal of Anthropology and Archeology), Universidad de Los Andes, Bogota, Colombia.
6) Research Associate, The Center for Comparative Immigration Studies (CCIS). University of California, San Diego. 2003-present.
Research Focus:
Social and cultural theory, Transnationalism, Cultural Studies, Latin America, Japan.
My
Publication:
The Ruins. Latin American Literary Review Press, Pittsburg, PA, 2014
http://www.lalrp.org/fictiontitles/theruins.html
“Negotiating Latino Social Space in Japan.” Asian Journal of Latin American Studies.
Vol. 26, No 4, 2013, pp 1-18.
http://www.ajlas.org/v2006/paper/2013vol26no401.pdf
“El Ámbito Cultural Latino en Japón.” Crítica Contemporánea. Revista de Teoría Política
. Vol. 1, No 2, 2012, pp. 1–16.
http://www.fcs.edu.uy/archivos/reyesruiz%281%29.pdf
Engaging Otherness (Encounters, No. 1), Dubai, UAE: Zayed University Press, 2008, 2009 (reprint).
http://encounters.zu.ac.ae
Reyes-Ruiz, Rafael: THE RUINS
Kirkus Reviews. (Apr. 1, 2017):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Reyes-Ruiz, Rafael THE RUINS Latin American Literary Review Press (Indie Fiction) $None 4, 1 ISBN: 978-1-891270-26-0
A professor of Japanese history searches for a long-lost lover while studying the Portuguese diaspora throughout Asia. Reyes-Ruiz (La Forma de las Cosas, 2016, etc.) crams a wide range of topics into a novel that follows Tomas Rodrigues, a professor at a Roman Catholic university in Tokyo, as he untangles three plotlines: the sudden reappearance of a girlfriend from his youth, a mysterious old text about the adventures of a 16th-century Portuguese man, and anxieties about his academic career. The enigmatic former lover, Monica Klaseen, is the most intriguing of the three threads, and Rodrigues' search for her becomes the engine that drives the tale forward. After seeing a woman who looks like Klaseen in the airport, the professor faints and forgets the encounter, but is suddenly haunted by strange dreams and recollections of a woman he hasn't thought about for more than 20 years. When he returns to Japan for the start of the new school year, he is unable to forget Klaseen, even though he has to navigate departmental politics, a new research project, and his relationship with his ex-wife. That's a lot of content for a relatively slim 175 pages, but there are essentially two major themes. The first focuses on the difficulty of finding a sense of home in an international world. Rodrigues is a Portuguese-Colombian with Australian citizenship teaching in Japan, battling the stigma against foreigners while investigating the origins of that bias through research. The second delves into the inconsistency of memory and history; Rodrigues constantly struggles to separate truth and falsehood as he parses the imperial past and his own experiences. In addressing this latter point, the novel occasionally trips over itself. Rodrigues' bout of short-term amnesia at the book's outset is a curious episode that ultimately feels unnecessary. Stylistically, Reyes-Ruiz's subject matter and prose evoke a number of comparisons: Haruki Murakami's ambiguous atmosphere, the virile professor narratives of Philip Roth, and the post-colonial preoccupations of Amitav Ghosh. Fans of any of these authors should find something to like here, but the book may prove especially appealing to anyone looking to learn about an underappreciated dimension of the colonial experience, the Portuguese exploration of Asia. A stylish, jampacked tale that examines love, memory, and international identity.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Reyes-Ruiz, Rafael: THE RUINS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Apr. 2017. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A487668555/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=467c9047. Accessed 24 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A487668555
The Ruins
by Rafael Reyes-Ruiz
Picture
The Ruins is a cross-cultural novel by Rafael Reyes-Ruiz which explores the relationship between memory and nostalgia in a plot that takes place in several continents. It is the story of Tomás Rodrigues, a professor in Japan, who finds himself haunted by his past when he sees a woman who looks exactly like his first true love. In an effort to understand what seems impossible, Tomás gathers enough courage to speak to the mystery woman, only to realize she has already disappeared. Tomás frantically begins his search for her and thus begins his journey.
Rafael Reyes-Ruiz provides readers with harmonic images of several cities and cultures around the world while unraveling a plot of mystery and self-search with themes of love, loss and acceptance. In this journey, we explore the mind of a man who is eager to understand and reconcile with his past. The Ruins makes the reader question whether coincidences exist at all, or if the universe, in some mystical way, has already written the plots to our stories.
Rafael Reyes-Ruiz teaches in the Humanities and Social Sciences Department at Zayed University in Dubai. He is editor of Encounters, an academic journal/book series. He is currently at work on a second novel.
The Ruins is a publication by Latin American Literary Review Press and can be purchased through Amazon. Click here to purchase.
4/13/2017