Leer el libro desde sus paratextos: censura, crítica y legitimación en la literatura novohispana (siglos XVI–XVIII)

instance, in his interpretation of Nicolás de Torres’s Festín hecho por las morenas criollas (1640), the central text for Chapter 4. After extensive analysis of the allegorical dances performed by Black women for the incoming viceroy, Valerio claims that these festive performances speak to Afro-Mexican cultural and sociopolitical agency, to the degree that even the publication of the text may be attributed to the creole women of Mexico City. Here the author turns to examples from eighteenth-century Minas Gerais to support his argument by referencing later cases in which other Black communities sponsored the publication of festive texts. While some may take exception to such a chronological and temporal leap, this reader found the engagement with confraternal Brazilian sources productive. Casting such a wide diasporic net for images and textual references of Black kings and queens, ambassadors, dancers, drummers, and cofrades advances a rich, multidisciplinary, trans-imperial dialogue. For instance, in Chapter 3, Valerio deconstructs the representation of a float with an African monarch atop a firework-filled elephant as part of Ignatius of Loyola’s beatification celebrations in Mexico City. This extravagant scene was a central component of the anonymous text known as ‘Relación de las fiestas insignes’ (1610), which also featured an elaborate castle manned (and perhaps designed?) by the Black brotherhood of the Dominican convent. Valerio offers a superb translation of the festive text, before presenting a visual compendium of Black kings riding elephants from a variety of early modern sources. The effect of juxtaposing these textual and visual materials allows for a variety of readings and questions. How, for instance, would a Black creole, born and raised in Mexico, engage with archetypal, yet celebratory, representations of African monarchs? Sovereign joy also advances a powerful, if understated, question: if some of the earliest records of Black festive culture in the African diaspora are found in Mexico, why have these practices received so little scholarly attention? In this reader’s opinion, this query and challenge are posed to Mexicanists and scholars of Black studies alike. Valerio has documented the hypervisibility of Black kings and, to a lesser extent, queens, since the 1530s. The book, then, serves as an invitation to reconsider ‘the early genealogy’ of Black sovereigns in the Americas with Mexico as the point of departure (220). In sum, Sovereign joy is a welcome and timely monograph. It will appeal to scholars of the African diaspora, Black religious practices, and artistic representations of the Black body. Given its multidisciplinary approach, it should be adopted broadly in History, Black Studies, Religion, Art History, and Comparative Literature coursework.