In Ortega-Medina’s debut short story collection, characters are
consumed by their fascinations with sex, death, and inescapable fate.
Already receiving high acclaim, Jerusalem Ablaze has been shortlisted
for the Polari First Book Prize of 2017, an annual award given to a
writer whose first book explores the LGBT experience, whether in
poetry, prose, fiction or non-fiction.
The unnamed Japanese narrator in the opening story, Torture by Roses,
takes a job working for millionaire Ikeda Yataro in Tokyo. All he has
to do to become Ikeda’s heir is deliver meals and correspondence,
but what Ikeda takes from the narrator is far greater. He wants to
teach him how to hate, which would, for starters, entail calling off
his engagement with his fiancee. The narrator, who is told to ask no
questions, is a prisoner of sorts, which makes him akin to other
characters throughout the book. In Cactuses, an aspiring writer meets
an older, well-known author who is resigned to his inevitable,
imminent death, “I just know,” he tells the young man, "that it
will happen soon". In Star Party, a man named Isaac is granted
temporary asylum in the UNITED STATES and can’t leave the country
until his case is decided, and in And a Little Child Shall Lead Them,
Sadie Hunter, a battered woman, gets no help from her mother or a
priest.
ORTEGA-MEDINA’s tales are predominantly somber and often dabble in
the macabre. His prose is elegant and potent throughout with these
stylish, sincere tales that go to dark, sometimes-uncomfortable
places.
Orlando Ortega-Medina was born in California and is of Judeo-Spanish
descent via Cuba. He studied English Literature at UCLA and has a
Juris Doctor law degree from Southwestern University School of Law.
Orlando is now a British citizen and currently lives in London, where
he practices US immigration law.
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01/09/2017 Last update