Dominican writer Pedro Antonio Valdez is the author of Carnaval de Sodoma; La Rosa y El Sudario: Cuentos Cortos; and Bachata del Angel Caido. Valdez’s work provides a critical and sophisticated perspective of the material and social transformations that have defined the lives of the people of Spanish-speaking areas of the Caribbean during recent decades. Valdez also addresses social, racial, ethnic, and political problems in contemporary Dominican society, creating characters who exemplify a new way of adapting to the challenges that have been brought by democratic modernization. During his residency at Berkeley, Valdez taught a creative writing seminar in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, primarily directed to undergraduates interested in poetic expression including hip-hop. He also gave a public reading of his work and delivered a lecture on the cultural history of the Caribbean.