Cuando Era Puertorrique A

La historia de Esmeralda Santiago comienza en la parte rural de Puerto Rico, donde sus padres y siete hermanos, en continuas luchas los unos con los otros, vivían una vida alborotada pero llena de amor y ternura. De niña, Esmeralda aprendió a apreciar cómo se come una guayaba, a distinguir la canción del coquí, a identificar los ingredientes en las morcillas y a ayudar a que el alma de un bebé muerto subiera al Cielo. Pero precisamente cuando Esmeralda parecía haberlo aprendido todo sobre su cultura, la llevaron a Nueva York, donde las reglas y el idioma eran no sólo diferentes, sino también desconcertantes. Cómo Esmeralda superó la adversidad, se ganó entrada a la Performing Arts High School y después continuó a Harvard, de donde se graduó con altos honores, es el relato de la tremenda trayectoria de una mujer verdaderamente extraordinaria.

La historia de Esmeralda Santiago comienza en la parte rural de Puerto Rico, donde sus padres y siete hermanos, en continuas luchas los unos con los otros, vivían una vida alborotada pero llena de amor y ternura. De niña, Esmeralda aprendió a apreciar cómo se come una guayaba, a distinguir la canción del coquí, a identificar los ingredientes en las morcillas y a ayudar a que el alma de un bebé muerto subiera al Cielo. Pero precisamente cuando Esmeralda parecía haberlo aprendido todo sobre su cultura, la llevaron a Nueva York, donde las reglas —y el idioma— eran no sólo diferentes, sino también desconcertantes. Cómo Esmeralda superó la adversidad, se ganó entrada a la Performing Arts High School y después continuó a Harvard, de donde se graduó con altos honores, es el relato de la tremenda trayectoria de una mujer verdaderamente extraordinaria.

Magic, sexual tension, high comedy, and intense drama move through an enchanted yet harsh autobiography, in the story of a young girl who leaves rural Puerto Rico for New York's tenements and a chance for success.

FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD From prize-winning author Bobbie Ann Mason, a brilliantly wrought novel about the first woman to give birth to quintuplets in early 1900s America. Set in the apocalyptic atmosphere of 1900—a time when many Americans were looking for signs foretelling the end of the world—Feather Crowns is the story of a young woman who unintentionally creates a national sensation. A farm wife living near the small town of Hopewell, Kentucky, Christianna Wheeler gives birth to the first recorded set of quintuplets in North America. Christie is suddenly thrown into a swirling storm of public attention. Hundreds of strangers descend on her home, all wanting to see and touch the "miracle babies." The fate of the babies and the bizarre events that follow their births propel Christie and her husband far from home, on a journey that exposes them to the turbulent pageant of life at the beginning of the modern era. Richly detailed and poignant, Feather Crowns focuses on one woman but opens out ultimately into the chronicle of a time and a people. Written in Bobbie Ann Mason's taut yet lyrical prose, the novel ranges from a peaceful farming community to a fire-and-brimstone revival camp, from traveling shows to the the nation's capital. Moving through the center of it all is Christie, a charming, headstrong, loving woman who struggles heroically to come to terms with the extraordinary events of her long life. Feather Crowns is an American parable of profound resonance. Spellbindingly readable, it is a novel of classic stature that confirmed Bobbie Ann Mason as one of America's most important writers.

La historia de Esmeralda Santiago comienza en la parte rural de Puerto Rico, donde sus padres y siete hermanos, en continuas luchas los unos con los otros, vivían una vida alborotada pero llena de amor y ternura. De niña, Esmeralda aprendió a apreciar cómo se come una guayaba, a distinguir la canción del coquí, a identificar los ingredientes en las morcillas y a ayudar a que el alma de un bebé muerto subiera al Cielo. Pero precisamente cuando Esmeralda parecía haberlo aprendido todo sobre su cultura, la llevaron a Nueva York, donde las reglas --y el idioma-- eran no sólo diferentes, sino también desconcertantes. Cómo Esmeralda superó la adversidad, se ganó entrada a la Performing Arts High School y después continuó a Harvard, de donde se graduó con altos honores, es el relato de la tremenda trayectoria de una mujer verdaderamente extraordinaria ENGLISH DESCRIPTION One of "The Best Memoirs of a Generation" (Oprah's Book Club): a young woman's journey from the mango groves and barrios of Puerto Rico to Brooklyn, and eventually on to Harvard In a childhood full of tropical beauty and domestic strife, poverty and tenderness, Esmeralda Santiago learned the proper way to eat a guava, the sound of tree frogs, the taste of morcilla, and the formula for ushering a dead baby's soul to heaven. But when her mother, Mami, a force of nature, takes off to New York with her seven, soon to be eleven children, Esmeralda, the oldest, must learn new rules, a new language, and eventually a new identity. In the first of her three acclaimed memoirs, Esmeralda brilliantly recreates her tremendous journey from the idyllic landscape and tumultuous family life of her earliest years, to translating for her mother at the welfare office, and to high honors at Harvard.

Esmeralda Santiago's story begins in rural Puerto Rico, where her childhood was full of both tenderness and domestic strife, tropical sounds and sights as well as poverty. Growing up, she learned the proper way to eat a guava, the sound of tree frogs in the mango groves at night, the taste of the delectable sausage called morcilla, and the formula for ushering a dead baby's soul to heaven. As she enters school we see the clash, both hilarious and fierce, of Puerto Rican and Yankee culture. When her mother, Mami, a force of nature, takes off to New York with her seven, soon to be eleven children, Esmeralda, the oldest, must learn new rules, a new language, and eventually take on a new identity. In this first volume of her much-praised, bestselling trilogy, Santiago brilliantly recreates the idyllic landscape and tumultuous family life of her earliest years and her tremendous journey from the barrio to Brooklyn, from translating for her mother at the welfare office to high honors at Harvard.

The articles included in this collection cover a wide range of literatures and topics, but most of them address the ways in which ethnic writers create themselves in opposition and resistance to the mainstream. These narratives of opposition and resistance do not equate protest narratives but represent a consciously subversive effort. There is agency and creativity in the confrontation, for the majority of the these narratives are not only demystifying an old world and order but creating a new one; there narratives are not reproducing as much as producing and forging culture and literature. The articles we presente resist not only the politics of traditional canon formation but the politics of cultural nationalism as well; they challenge the margins as well as the center. With this revisionist agenda, the aim or this collection is to invite readers to further their rethinking of American and Caribbean literatures.