Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated from September 15 through October 15. Our exhibit features six Hispanic countries or territories: Mexico, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. Each region's section contains fiction or poetry by authors from that country, as well as books about their culture.
*All books on display are available for checkout. Please see a staff member.*
Mexico
Mexico by
This book provides a collection of essays discussing Mexico, highlighting its instability, economy, common border, and foreign relations with the United States. Essays are arranged in a pro versus con sequence, so readers are navigated through the issues while benefiting from more than one viewpoint. Are Mexican drug cartels destabilizing democracy in Mexico? Does N.A.F.T.A. hurt the Mexican economy? Will a U.S. border fence deter illegal immigration? Can the U.S. do anything to help Mexico? These questions and more are answered through thoughtful points and counterpoints.
Mexico by
Culture Smart! Mexico takes you to the heart of Mexican society. It describes how people socialize and meet members of the opposite sex, the dynamics of daily life, the central importance of family, and the annual cycle of Catholic feasts and fiestas. For business travelers there are key sections on the economy and vital insights into the general business culture. The third-largest country in Latin America, Mexico is hugely diverse, having both rural areas where time seems to have stood still and manic urban centers like Mexico City, one of the most densely populated and exciting cities in the world. Famed for its well-preserved archaeological sites, cobblestoned colonial towns, and beautiful beaches, it is a major magnet for tourists. Mexico also has a name as a creative powerhouse in the region, with world-renowned artists such as Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, a cinema industry that has been producing award-winning movies since the Golden Age of the 1940s, and a literary scene second to none in Latin America.
The House on Mango Street by
A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK CLUB PICK NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A coming-of-age classic about a young girl growing up in Chicago * Acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages, taught in schools and universities alike, and translated around the world--from the winner of the 2019 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature. "Cisneros draws on her rich [Latino] heritage...and seduces with precise, spare prose, creat[ing] unforgettable characters we want to lift off the page. She is not only a gifted writer, but an absolutely essential one." --The New York Times Book Review The House on Mango Street is one of the most cherished novels of the last fifty years. Readers from all walks of life have fallen for the voice of Esperanza Cordero, growing up in Chicago and inventing for herself who and what she will become. "In English my name means hope," she says. "In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting." Told in a series of vignettes--sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes joyous--Cisneros's masterpiece is a classic story of childhood and self-discovery and one of the greatest neighborhood novels of all time. Like Sinclair Lewis's Main Street or Toni Morrison's Sula, it makes a world through people and their voices, and it does so in language that is poetic and direct. This gorgeous coming-of-age novel is a celebration of the power of telling one's story and of being proud of where you're from.
La Casa en Mango Street by
TIMES 2020, los 100 mejores libros juveniles de todos los tiempos Elogiado por la crítica, admirado por lectores de todas las edades, en escuelas y universidades de todo el país y traducido a una multitud de idiomas, La casa en Mango Street es la extraordinaria historia de Esperanza Cordero. Contado a través de una serie de viñetas --a veces desgarradoras, a veces profundamente alegres-- es el relato de una niña latina que crece en un barrio de Chicago, inventando por sí misma en qué y en quién se convertirá. Pocos libros de nuestra era han conmovido a tantos lectores. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION TIMES 2020 100 Best YA of All Times Acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages, taught everywhere from inner-city grade schools to universities across the country, and translated all over the world, The House on Mango Street is the remarkable story of Esperanza Cordero. Told in a series of vignettes - sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyous - it is the story of a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for herself who and what she will become. Few other books in our time have touched so many readers.
Chile
Chile by
Chile is a land of contrast and surprise, flanked by the Pacific Ocean on the west, the Andes to the east, the forbidding salt basins of the Atacama Desert to the north--with a verdant Central Valley and Cape Horn at its southern extremity. The Chilean people, too, are surprising: on one hand reserved, family-oriented, Catholic, and conservative; and on the other fun-loving, entrepreneurial, neoliberal, and modern. Their geographical isolation from the rest of the world, their colonial past, and the near 20years of repression under the military dictatorship of General Pinochet have had a profound influence on their character. Today, traditional Chilean values are being questioned by the younger generation. In fact, the country's position as the Latin American stronghold of Catholicism is being challenged by Chileans of all generations, and pressure has led to unprecedented changes in family and censorship law. Chile is also one of the fastest-growing economies in South America, and thanks to ambitious structural reforms, has sharply reduced its poverty rate in the past few years. Culture Smart! Chile provides vital information on what to expect and how to behave in this complex and dynamic society.
The Chile Reader by
The Chile Reader makes available a rich variety of documents spanning more than five hundred years of Chilean history. Most of the selections are by Chileans; many have never before appeared in English. The history of Chile is rendered from diverse perspectives, including those of Mapuche Indians and Spanish colonists, peasants and aristocrats, feminists and military strongmen, entrepreneurs and workers, and priests and poets. Among the many selections are interviews, travel diaries, letters, diplomatic cables, cartoons, photographs, and song lyrics. Texts and images, each introduced by the editors, provide insights into the ways that Chile's unique geography has shaped its national identity, the country's unusually violent colonial history, and the stable but autocratic republic that emerged after independence from Spain. They shed light on Chile's role in the world economy, the social impact of economic modernization, and the enduring problems of deep inequality. The Reader also covers Chile's bold experiments with reform and revolution, its subsequent descent into one of Latin America's most ruthless Cold War dictatorships, and its much-admired transition to democracy and a market economy in the years since dictatorship.
Ines of My Soul by
A passionate tale of love, freedom, and conquest from the New York Times bestselling author of The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende. Born into a poor family in Spain, Inés Suárez, finds herself condemned to a life of poverty without opportunity as a lowly seamstress. But it's the sixteenth century, the beginning of the Spanish conquest of the Americas. Struck by the same restless hope and opportunism, Inés uses her shiftless husband's disappearance to Peru as an excuse to embark on her own adventure. After learning of her husband's death in battle, she meets the fiery war hero, Pedro de Valdivia and begins a love that not only changes her life but the course of history. Based on the real historical events that founded Chile, Allende takes us on a whirlwind adventure of love and loss seen through the eyes of a daring, complicated woman who fought for freedom.
Zorro by
A swashbuckling adventure story that reveals for the first time how Diego de la Vega became the masked man we all know so well Born in southern California late in the eighteenth century, he is a child of two worlds. Diego de la Vega's father is an aristocratic Spanish military man turned landowner; his mother, a Shoshone warrior. Diego learns from his maternal grandmother, White Owl, the ways of her tribe while receiving from his father lessons in the art of fencing and in cattle branding. It is here, during Diego's childhood, filled with mischief and adventure, that he witnesses the brutal injustices dealt Native Americans by European settlers and first feels the inner conflict of his heritage. At the age of sixteen, Diego is sent to Barcelona for a European education. In a country chafing under the corruption of Napoleonic rule, Diego follows the example of his celebrated fencing master and joins La Justicia, a secret underground resistance movement devoted to helping the powerless and the poor. With this tumultuous period as a backdrop, Diego falls in love, saves the persecuted, and confronts for the first time a great rival who emerges from the world of privilege. Between California and Barcelona, the New World and the Old, the persona of Zorro is formed, a great hero is born, and the legend begins. After many adventures -- duels at dawn, fierce battles with pirates at sea, and impossible rescues -- Diego de la Vega, a.k.a. Zorro, returns to America to reclaim the hacienda on which he was raised and to seek justice for all who cannot fight for it themselves.
Neruda at Isla Negra by
"Few writers are as integrally bound to a place as Pablo Neruda was to the landscape of Isla Negra. From his arrival there in the late '30s to his death in 1973, Isla Negra became a text that unraveled in a series of essential images that are fundamental to an understanding of his mature work."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Winter Garden by
Facing death from cancer, Neruda wrote no book more direct and passionate in its language, and this translation-the first time these poems appeared in English-was cited by "Bloomsbury Review" as a Book of the Year and called one of the "most valuable Neruda books we have today." In this lyrical suite, the poet meditates on his imminent death, embraces solitude, and returns to nature as a source of regeneration. Bilingual with introduction.
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic Reader by
Despite its significance in the history of Spanish colonialism, the Dominican Republic is familiar to most outsiders through only a few elements of its past and culture. Non-Dominicans may be aware that the country shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti and that it is where Christopher Columbus chose to build a colony. Some may know that the country produces talented baseball players and musicians; others that it is a prime destination for beach vacations. Little else about the Dominican Republic is common knowledge outside its borders. This Reader seeks to change that. It provides an introduction to the history, politics, and culture of the country, from precolonial times into the early twenty-first century. Among the volume's 118 selections are essays, speeches, journalism, songs, poems, legal documents, testimonials, and short stories, as well as several interviews conducted especially for this Reader. Many of the selections have been translated into English for the first time. All of them are preceded by brief introductions written by the editors. The volume's eighty-five illustrations, ten of which appear in color, include maps, paintings, and photos of architecture, statues, famous figures, and Dominicans going about their everyday lives.
Dominican Republic by
Occupying the eastern two-thirds of island of Hispaniola, the Dominican Republic has something for almost everyone - except perhaps obsessive perfectionists. If you can relax and go with the flow you will experience a land of great environmental diversity with a rich and varied culture, a turbulent history, some infuriating idiosyncrasies, and a people whose friendliness is legendary. The Dominicans are flamboyant, irrepressible, generous, headstrong, and resilient. Their culture is a distinctive mix of an easygoing Caribbean nature coupled with Latino verve and showmanship. For those who choose to break out of the confines of all-inclusive tourist resorts, Culture Smart! Dominican Republic offers a tantalizing insight into this warm, vital, and intriguing people. It takes you on a journey from the unspoiled coastline to the agricultural interior, to the imposing mountains and to the hamlets where time appears to have stood still. It then catapults you into the twenty-first century, through poverty and opulence, to the hustle and bustle of the large cities and the lifestyles of the luxury coastal tourist resorts. It offers practical advice on what to expect and to how to behave in a Dominican home, or in social and work settings. The authors of this book, both long-term residents in the Dominican Republic, have provided a unique roadmap to the interesting and challenging experiences that await you in this beautiful, varied, and complex country.
Afterlife by
A Time Magazine Must-Read Book of 2020 A Most-Anticipated Book of the Year: O, The Oprah Magazine * The New York Times * The Washington Post *Vogue * Bustle * BuzzFeed * Ms. magazine * The Millions * Huffington Post * PopSugar * The Lily * Goodreads * Library Journal * LitHub * Electric Literature "The In the Time of the Butterflies icon makes a satisfying and long-awaited return to adult fiction with this kind tale of grief and sisterhood. ...deeply poignant." --Entertainment Weekly "A gorgeously intimate portrait of an immigrant writer and recent widow carving out hope in the face of personal and political grief." --O, The Oprah Magazine "A stunning work of art that reminds readers Alvarez is, and always has been, in a class of her own." --Elizabeth Acevedo, National Book Award-winning author of the New York Times bestseller The Poet X Antonia Vega, the immigrant writer at the center of Afterlife, has had the rug pulled out from under her. She has just retired from the college where she taught English when her beloved husband, Sam, suddenly dies. And then more jolts: her bighearted but unstable sister disappears, and Antonia returns home one evening to find a pregnant, undocumented teenager on her doorstep. Antonia has always sought direction in the literature she loves--lines from her favorite authors play in her head like a soundtrack--but now she finds that the world demands more of her than words. Afterlife is a compact, nimble, and sharply droll novel. Set in this political moment of tribalism and distrust, it asks: What do we owe those in crisis in our families, including--maybe especially--members of our human family? How do we live in a broken world without losing faith in one another or ourselves? And how do we stay true to those glorious souls we have lost?
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by
Named A Great American Novel by The Atlantic! From the international bestselling author of In the Time of the Butterflies and Afterlife, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents is "poignant...powerful... Beautifully captures the threshold experience of the new immigrant, where the past is not yet a memory." (The New York Times Book Review) Don't miss Alvarez's new novel, The Cemetery of Untold Stories, available now! Acclaimed writer Julia Alvarez's beloved first novel gives voice to four sisters as they grow up in two cultures. The García sisters--Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofía--and their family must flee their home in the Dominican Republic after their father's role in an attempt to overthrow brutal dictator Rafael Trujillo is discovered. They arrive in New York City in 1960 to a life far removed from their existence in the Caribbean. In the wondrous but not always welcoming U.S.A., their parents try to hold on to their old ways as the girls try find new lives: by straightening their hair and wearing American fashions, and by forgetting their Spanish. For them, it is at once liberating and excruciating to be caught between the old world and the new. Here they tell their stories about being at home--and not at home--in America. "Alvarez helped blaze the trail for Latina authors to break into the literary mainstream, with novels like In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents winning praise from critics and gracing best-seller lists across the Americas."--Francisco Cantú, The New York Times Book Review "A clear-eyed look at the insecurity and yearning for a sense of belonging that are a part of the immigrant experience . . . Movingly told." --The Washington Post Book World
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Pulitzer Prize Winner) by
Winner of: The Pulitzer Prize The National Book Critics Circle Award The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award The Jon Sargent, Sr. First Novel Prize A Time Magazine #1 Fiction Book of the Year One of The New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century One of the best books of 2007 according to: The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, New York Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, The Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, People, The Village Voice, Time Out New York, Salon, Baltimore City Paper, The Christian Science Monitor, Booklist, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, New York Public Library, and many more... Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read and named one of The Atlantic's Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years Oscar is a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd who--from the New Jersey home he shares with his old world mother and rebellious sister--dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, finding love. But Oscar may never get what he wants. Blame the fukú--a curse that has haunted Oscar's family for generations, following them on their epic journey from Santo Domingo to the USA. Encapsulating Dominican-American history, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao opens our eyes to an astonishing vision of the contemporary American experience and explores the endless human capacity to persevere--and risk it all--in the name of love.
Colombia
The Colombia Reader by
Containing over one hundred selections--most of them published in English for the first time--The Colombia Reader presents a rich and multilayered account of this complex nation from the colonial era to the present. The collection includes journalistic reports, songs, artwork, poetry, oral histories, government documents, and scholarship to illustrate the changing ways Colombians from all walks of life have made and understood their own history. Comprehensive in scope, it covers regional differences; religion, art, and culture; the urban/rural ÷ patterns of racial, economic, and gender inequalities; the history of violence; and the transnational flows that have shaped the nation. The Colombia Reader expands readers' knowledge of Colombia beyond its reputation for violence, contrasting experiences of conflict with the stability and significance of cultural, intellectual, and economic life in this plural nation.
Memories of My Melancholy Whores by
Memories of My Melancholy Whoresis Gabriel García Márquez's first work of fiction in ten years, written at the height of his powers, the Spanish edition of which Ilan Stavans called, "Masterful. Erotic. As hypnotizing as it is disturbing" (Los Angeles Times). On the eve of his ninetieth birthday, our unnamed protagonist-an undistinguished journalist and lifelong bachelor-decides to give himself "the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin." The virgin, whom an old madam procures for him, is splendidly young, with the silent power of a sleeping beauty. The night of love blossoms into a transforming year. It is a year in which he relives, in a rush of memories, his lifetime of (paid-for) sexual adventures and experiences a revelation that brings him to the edge of dying-not of old age, but, at long last, of uncorrupted love. Memories of My Melancholy Whoresis a brilliant gem by the master storyteller.
García Márquez by
Gabriel Garcia Marquez is one of the most influential writers of our time. His unique literary creativity is rooted in the history of the region, with all its social and political implications. In this beautifully written examination of Garcia Marquez and his work, Gene Bell-Villada traces the major forces that have shaped the Colombian novelist and describes his life, his personality, and his political opinions. He considers Garcia Marquez's place in world literature and analyzes his short fiction and all of his novels from the great and complex One Hundred Years of Solitude -- a cultural phenomenon the likes of which we have seldom seen -- through Love in the Time of Cholera. He shows why Garcia Marquez has achieved a confluence of high art and popular success that is virtually unique in the twentieth century. Bell-Villada examines the narrative works of Garcia Marquez for their historical and human content, for their literary technique and structure, and for their expert use of fantasy, ribaldry, humor, and satire. He describes Garcia Marquez as a global phenomenon and as a local boy, as a Nobel Laureate and as a Latin American Everyman, as a political writer and as a novelist of love. The book will appeal to a broad spectrum of readers -- generalists who enjoy his novels, teachers and students, and literary specialists and Latin Americanists investigating the culture and politics of the region.
The Sound of Things Falling by
* National Bestseller and winner of the 2014 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award * Hailed by Edmund White as "a brilliant new novel" on the cover of the New York Times Book Review * Lauded by Jonathan Franzen, E. L. Doctorow and many others From a global literary star comes a prize-winning tour de force - an intimate portrayal of the drug wars in Colombia. Juan Gabriel V#65533;squez has been hailed not only as one of South America's greatest literary stars, but also as one of the most acclaimed writers of his generation. In this gorgeously wrought, award-winning novel, V#65533;squez confronts the history of his home country, Colombia. In the city of Bogot#65533;, Antonio Yammara reads an article about a hippo that had escaped from a derelict zoo once owned by legendary Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. The article transports Antonio back to when the war between Escobar's Medell#65533;n cartel and government forces played out violently in Colombia's streets and in the skies above. Back then, Antonio witnessed a friend's murder, an event that haunts him still. As he investigates, he discovers the many ways in which his own life and his friend's family have been shaped by his country's recent violent past. His journey leads him all the way back to the 1960s and a world on the brink of change: a time before narco-trafficking trapped a whole generation in a living nightmare. V#65533;squez is "one of the most original new voices of Latin American literature," according to Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa, and The Sound of Things Falling is his most personal, most contemporary novel to date, a masterpiece that takes his writing--and will take his literary star--even higher.
Colombia by
Colombia is a magical country, full of spectacular varied landscapes, rare ecosystems, succulent tropical fruits, salsa and cumbia music, and kind, fun-loving people. The modern culture is a synthesis of Spanish, indigenous, and African traditions, evident in the music, the food, and Barranquilla's famous Carnaval. The country's major cities are modern and cosmopolitan, with an international style and consumerism that makes them feel more like cities in the USA than Latin America. Yet, five minutes into the countryside, its distinct rural charms reveal a slower and more bucolic past. In the collective imagination, Colombia is exotic, lawless, and dangerous--an illegal narcotics trade and the ongoing armed conflict have contributed to its bad-boy image. But things are changing, and there is so much more than that. Entrenched social inequality has led to strife, manifest in the long-lived left- and rightwing rebel movements and a cycle of appalling violence that has saturated four decades with an undeclared civil war. And still, the Colombians are animated, lighthearted and fun--always ready to laugh and enjoy the moment. They have found strength in each other, in their families, and closest friends who are the cornerstones of their lives. Culture Smart! Colombia shows how the country's rough geography and tumultuous history have shaped modern values and attitudes. It looks at the public realm and at life at home with the family. It introduces you to Colombia's distinct and delicious cuisine, and reveals what people think about each other, their neighbors, and foreigners. There is advice on the safest ways to get around; on how business is do≠ and how Colombians communicate. Culture Smart! Colombia explains the intricacies of a culture that is both modern and steeped in tradition, international and regional, cosmopolitan and agrarian, very rich and very poor, and after more than four decades of undeclared civil war is happily emerging from tough times and getting ready for the future.
Puerto Rico
Conquistadora by
An epic novel of love, discovery, and adventure by the author of the best-selling memoir When I Was Puerto Rican. As a young girl growing up in Spain, Ana Larragoity Cubillas is powerfully drawn to Puerto Rico by the diaries of an ancestor who traveled there with Ponce de León. And in handsome twin brothers Ramón and Inocente—both in love with Ana—she finds a way to get there. She marries Ramón, and in 1844, just eighteen, she travels across the ocean to a remote sugar plantation the brothers have inherited on the island. Ana faces unrelenting heat, disease and isolation, and the dangers of the untamed countryside even as she relishes the challenge of running Hacienda los Gemelos. But when the Civil War breaks out in the United States, Ana finds her livelihood, and perhaps even her life, threatened by the very people on whose backs her wealth has been built: the hacienda’s slaves, whose richly drawn stories unfold alongside her own. And when at last Ana falls for a man who may be her destiny—a once-forbidden love—she will sacrifice nearly everything to keep hold of the land that has become her true home. This is a sensual, riveting tale, set in a place where human passions and cruelties collide: thrilling history that has never before been brought so vividly and unforgettably to life.
History of Puerto Rico by
This book traces Puerto Rico's history from its geological formation (to the 21st century). It covers recent research on topics such as the island's Indian culture, the nationalist movement, and the class structures...superbly synthesized by Puerto Rico's leading historian. This is an updated and expanded translation of the Puerto Rican edition by the author of ""Historia General De Puerto Rico"".
Puerto Rico Strong by
Puerto Rico Strong is a comics anthology that explores what it means to be Puerto Rican and the diversity that exists within that concept, from today's most exciting Puerto Rican comics creators. Despite being a US territory, Puerto Rico is often thought of as a foreign land, if it's even a thought in the mind of the average American at all. Its people exist in all corners of America; some of them have parents who immigrated from the home island, others are a part of families that have been on the mainland for generations. Then there are those who have come to the states in search of a dream but struggle to integrate into an unfamiliar culture, while there are those who have lived in the United States all of their lives but still have the same struggle because of the color of their skin or their sexual identity. These stories follow individuals from diverse walks of life but are all part of the culture that is Puerto Rico.Puerto Rico Strong features art and writing by Rosa Colon, Vita Ayala, Naomi Franquiz, Javier Cruz Winnik, Sabrina Cintron, Ronnie Garcia, Fabian Nicieza, Joamette Gil, and many more! All profits will go to towards disaster relief and recovery programs to support Puerto Rico.
The House on the Lagoon by
"The House on the Lagoon is the story of Quintin Mendizabal and his wife, Isabel Monfort. Isabel, a fledgling novelist, is writing a multigenerational novel about the history of their families, of Spanish and Corsican origins, and their arrival in Puerto Rico. Her ambition is great, but her sense of history comically weak. When Quintin, who happens to be a historian, finds her manuscript, he begins to write alternate chapters expressing his own point of view." "Isabel colorfully weaves a tapestry of life among the ruling classes of Puerto Rico, with their passionate debates about independence, statehood, racism; their links to Spain and Europe; and their ambivalence toward the United States. But as she draws a self-portrait of her marriage as well, it becomes clear that her relationship with her husband is far from picture-perfect. Quintin becomes incensed at Isabel's version of events, at her audacity in writing a book, and an autobiographical one at that. And Isabel, in her struggle to forge a new identity and free herself from her coercive marriage and the constraints of the culture, precipitates a conflagration that threatens to consume the entire family."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Cuba
The Aguero Sisters by
Reina and Constancia Agüero are Cuban sisters who have been estranged for thirty years. Reina--tall, darkly beautiful, and magnetically sexual--still lives in her homeland. Once a devoted daughter of la revolución, she now basks in the glow of her many admiring suitors, believing only in what she can grasp with her five senses. The pale and very petite Constancia lives in the United States, a beauty expert who sees miracles and portents wherever she looks. After she and her husband retire to Miami, she becomes haunted by the memory of her parents and the unexplained death of her beloved mother so long ago. Told in the stirring voices of their parents, their daughters, and themselves, The Agüero Sisters tells a mesmerizing story about the power of myth to mask, transform, and finally, reveal the truth--as two women move toward an uncertain, long awaited reunion.
Dreaming in Cuban by
"Impressive . . . [Cristina García's] story is about three generations of Cuban women and their separate responses to the revolution. Her special feat is to tell it in a style as warm and gentle as the 'sustaining aromas of vanilla and almond,' as rhythmic as the music of Beny Moré."--Time Cristina García's acclaimed book is the haunting, bittersweet story of a family experiencing a country's revolution and the revelations that follow. The lives of Celia del Pino and her husband, daughters, and grandchildren mirror the magical realism of Cuba itself, a landscape of beauty and poverty, idealism and corruption. Dreaming in Cuban is "a work that possesses both the intimacy of a Chekov story and the hallucinatory magic of a novel by Gabriel García Márquez" (The New York Times). In celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the novel's original publication, this edition features a new introduction by the author. Praise for Dreaming in Cuban "Remarkable . . . an intricate weaving of dramatic events with the supernatural and the cosmic . . . evocative and lush."--San Francisco Chronicle "Captures the pain, the distance, the frustrations and the dreams of these family dramas with a vivid, poetic prose."--The Washington Post "Brilliant . . . With tremendous skill, passion and humor, García just may have written the definitive story of Cuban exiles and some of those they left behind."--The Denver Post
Cuba by
Ever since Fidel Castro assumed power in Cuba in 1959, Americans have obsessed about the nation ninety miles south of the Florida Keys. America's fixation on the tropical socialist republic has only grown over the years, fueled in part by successive waves of Cuban immigration and Castro's larger-than-life persona. Cubans are now a major ethnic group in Florida, and the exile community is so powerful that every American president has curried favor with it. But what do most Americans really know about Cuba itself? In this second edition of the widely hailed Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia Sweig updates her concise and remarkably accessible portrait of the small island nation - and now includes material from her 2010 interview with Fidel Castro. The new edition covers the key events of the last few years: Raul Castro's assumption of power from his brother Fidel, economic and political reforms since Raul came to power, and the changes in US-Cuba relations following the election of Barack Obama. Expansive in coverage and authoritative in scope, the book looks back over Cuba's history since the Spanish American War before shifting to recent times. Focusing equally on Cuba's role in world affairs and its own social and political transformations, Sweig divides the book chronologically into the pre-Fidel era, the period between the 1959 revolution and the fall of the Soviet Union, the post-Cold War era, and - finally - the post-Fidel era. Informative, pithy, and lucidly written, it is the best compact reference on Cuba's internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.
Empress of the Splendid Season by
Oscar Hijuelos vividly brings to life the joys, desires, and disappointment of American life witnessed through the experience of a formerly prosperous Cuban émigré named Lydia Espana--now a cleaning woman in New York. In magnetic prose, he juxtaposes Lydia's tale with the stories of her clients, contrasting her experiences with the secret lives of those for whom she works. No one writes better of love or the pulse of a city, nor has any writer better captured the complexity inherent in the emigration experience; how assimilation is at once the achievement of dreams, yet also a loss of the past. Empress of the Splendid Season is Hijuelos at his masterful best, a novel filled with incantatory, rhythmic prose and rich in heartfelt vision.
Cuba by
Cuba is a land of contradictions that is easy to enjoy but difficult for first-time visitors to decipher. The largest island in the Caribbean, it is a tropical paradise that Christopher Columbus called "the most beautiful land that human eyes have ever seen." It is famous for the romantic charm of its crumbling colonial cities, the beauty of its white sand beaches, and its irresistible Afro-Cuban dance beats. But it is also a land of shortages and tight government control, which has been in a sixty-year political standoff with its superpower neighbor, the USA. The homegrown version of single-party socialism created by Fidel Castro has kept Cuba in a Cold War time warp that only now is beginning to change. As travel restrictions are relaxed US tourists can once again visit the island. Greater flexibility toward private enterprise is opening it up to boutique hotels and high-quality home-based restaurants. There is a boom in special-interest tourism for cyclists, hikers, birdwatchers, and scuba divers, while foreign entrepreneurs are eagerly exploring investment opportunities. Culture Smart! Cuba will take you beyond the usual descriptions of Havana nightlife, vintage cars, and hand-rolled cigars and give you an insider's view of an island that is teetering on the brink of historic change. It offers insights into Cuba's fascinating history, national icons, unique food, vibrant cultural scene, and world-renowned music. Practical tips help business travelers gain an edge on the competition. But most of all, this book aims to show you how best to break the ice and get a better understanding of the infinitely resourceful Cuban people, who despite severe hardships and shortages over many years remain optimistic and fiercely proud of their heritage and culture.
