Houston, I'm the problem by Óscar García Sierra in Washington, DC

Óscar García Sierra presents “Houston, I’m the Problem” in a bilingual poetry reading with Indran Amirthanayagam at Lost City Books.

Spanish poet and novelist Óscar García Sierra will join poet and translator Indran Amirthanayagam for a bilingual poetry reading and conversation in Washington, DC. The event will center on Houston, I’m the Problem, a selection of García Sierra’s early poems, recently translated into English by Carmen Yus Quintero.

García Sierra’s poetry draws from everyday life to explore mental health, heartbreak, language, and disconnection themes. His writing has been featured in various international anthologies and publications, and his first novel, Facendera, received critical attention in Spain. His style often combines directness and irony, using familiar language to approach complex or unsettling subjects.

During the event, García Sierra will read from the original Spanish texts, while Amirthanayagam will read the English translations and moderate a brief discussion. The conversation will focus on the poems in Houston, I’m the Problem, while also touching on García Sierra’s broader body of work, including his fiction and his interest in language and contemporary culture.

Houston, I’m the Problem

The first English-language collection by Óscar García Sierra explores the desires and disillusionments of millennial culture.

Houston, I Am the Problem is the book I wrote in the notes app on my phone while hiding in the bathroom at a party. It’s also the book made up of tweets I was too embarrassed to take out of my drafts folder. It’s a book filled with references to Britney Spears, Lydia Davis, Spring Breakers, and Hannah Montana. It’s a book dedicated to a Russian designer and a model and actress from Fast and Furious. It’s a book about medication, aliens, and the Deep Web. And it’s also the book David Foster Wallace would have wanted to write.

—Óscar García Sierra

The achievement of Houston, I’m The Problem, resides in García’s creation of a poetic universe of his own, which rises up to claim a new creative path where the borders between the arts start to shake.

—Laura Villar, Compostimes

[…] Medicated, anaphoric, depressed, dryly humorous, and insistent, these pop-nihilist poems are so full, you can’t help but think of them as beautiful holes dragging themselves through the wreckage of the page. I feel as though I’ve been hooked up to an IV of something I didn’t know I was lacking.

—Emily Skillings

Óscar García Sierra

Óscar García Sierra was born in León, Spain, in 1994. He studied Spanish, Language and Literature at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, and he published his first book, Houston, yo soy el problema, in 2016. His poetry is part of Spain’s alternative literature, and his work has appeared in the alt/lit journal New Wave Vomit, the Tumblr Ciudades Esqueleto, the news and media website Playground and the poetry magazine Revista tn, among others. His latest book, Facendera, was published in May 2022.

Indran Amirthanayagam

Indran Amirthanayagam is a poet, editor, publisher, translator, youtube host and diplomat. He is the author of 28 books and translations. For thirty years he worked for his adoptive country, the United States, on diplomatic assignments in Africa, Asia, Europe and North and South America. Amirthanayagam produced a unique record in 2020 publishing three poetry collections written in three different languages. He writes in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Haitian Creole. He has published twenty eight poetry books and translations. In music, he recorded Rankont Dout.

Carmen Yus Quintero

Carmen Yus Quintero was born in Huelva, Spain in 1996. She is a Spanish and English teacher and translator. She has a bachelor’s degree in Translation and Interpreting, a MA in Spanish Studies, and a MA in Education. In 2021, some of her translations of Óscar García’s work were published in New Poetry in Translation. Her article “Posibilidades de la virtualidad” was also published the same year in Falso Mutis. Her interests include literary translation, education and performing arts.