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A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK Shortlisted for the 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction “Through a novel with so much depth, beauty, and grace, we, like Ana, are forever changed.” —Jacqueline Woodson, Vanity Fair “Gorgeous writing, gorgeous story.” —Sandra Cisneros Fifteen-year-old Ana Cancion never dreamed of moving to America, the way the girls she grew up with in the Dominican countryside did. But when Juan Ruiz proposes and promises to take her to New York City, she has to say yes. It doesn’t matter that he is twice her age, that there is no love between them. Their marriage is an opportunity for her entire close-knit family to eventually immigrate. So on New Year’s Day,...
'Nobody's ever really given us such a revealing look at New York's Dominican population before . . . Cruz, in this determinedly real yet often magical novel, offers canny insights into family life' LA Times At eighteen, Soledad couldn't get away fast enough from her contentious family with their endless tragedies and petty fights. Two years later, she's an art student at Cooper Union with a gallery job and a hip East Village walk-up. But when Tía Gorda calls with the news that Soledad's mother has lapsed into an emotional coma, she insists that Soledad's return is the only cure. Fighting the memories of open hydrants, leering men, and slick-skinned teen girls with raunchy mouths and snapping gum, Soledad moves home to West 164th Street. As she tries to tame her cousin Flaca's raucous behaviour and to resist falling for Richie - a soulful, intense man from the neighbourhood - she also faces the greatest challenge of her life: confronting the ghosts from her mother's past and salvaging their damaged relationship. Evocative and wise, Soledad is a wondrous story of culture and chaos, family and integrity, myth and mysticism, from a Latina literary light.
With her first novel, Angie Cruz established herself as a dazzling new voice in Latin-American fiction. Junot Diaz called her "a revelation" and The Boston Globe compared her writing to that of Gabriel García Márquez. Now, with humor, passion, and intensity, she reveals the proud members of the Colón family and the dreams, love, and heartbreak that bind them to their past and the future. Esperanza did not risk her life fleeing the Dominican Republic to live in a tenement in Washington Heights. No, she left for the glittering dream she saw on television: JR, Bobby Ewing, and the crystal chandeliers of Dallas. But years later, she is still stuck in a cramped apartment with her husband, Sant...
A NEW YORK TIMES EDITOR'S CHOICE · A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW NOTABLE BOOK · REVIEWED ON THE FRONT COVER From GMA BOOK CLUB PICK and WOMEN'S PRIZE FINALIST Angie Cruz, author of Dominicana, an electrifying new novel about a woman who has lost everything but the chance to finally tell her story “Will have you LAUGHING line after line...Cruz AIMS FOR THE HEART, and fires.” —Los Angeles Times "An endearing portrait of a FIERCE, FUNNY woman." —The Washington Post Cara Romero thought she would work at the factory of little lamps for the rest of her life. But when, in her mid-50s, she loses her job in the Great Recession, she is forced back into the job market for the first time in dec...
With this new Latino literary collection Erika M. Martínez has brought together twenty-five engaging narratives written by Dominican women and women of Dominican descent living in the United States. The first volume of its kind, Daring to Write offers readers a wide array of works on a range of topics, including love and family, identity and belonging, immigration and the meaning of home. The resonant voices in this compilation reveal experiences that have been largely invisible until now. The volume opens with a foreword by Julia Alvarez and includes short stories, novel excerpts, memoirs, and personal essays and features work by established writers such as Angie Cruz and Nelly Rosario, al...
“A funny, perceptive, and much-needed book telling a much-needed story.” —Celeste Ng, author of the New York Times bestseller Little Fires Everywhere “Written with humor and grace, with intimacy and empathy, Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From is the perfect coming of age novel for our time.” —Matt Mendez, author of Barely Missing Everything and Twitching Heart First-generation American LatinX Liliana Cruz does what it takes to fit in at her new nearly all-white school. But when family secrets spill out and racism at school ramps up, she must decide what she believes in and take a stand. Liliana Cruz is a hitting a wall—or rather, walls. There’s the wall her mom has put up ever s...
Sex and the Citizen is a multidisciplinary collection of essays that draws on current anxieties about "legitimate" sexual identities and practices across the Caribbean to explore both the impact of globalization and the legacy of the region's history of sexual exploitation during colonialism, slavery, and indentureship. Speaking from within but also challenging the assumptions of feminism, literary and cultural studies, and queer studies, this volume questions prevailing oppositions between the backward, homophobic nation-state and the laid-back, service-with-a-smile paradise or between giving in ignominiously to the autocratic demands of the global north and equating postcolonial sovereignt...
Atravesando features nineteen writers who reveal to us what we trade when we love or are made to love, when we move or are forced to move and how it feels when we experience an unexpected loss. This book is a cornucopia of humor, tragedy, and sensuality- featuring some of the most compelling and electrifying female protagonists today.
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2017 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 'Bold, dramatic and deeply unsettling' Guardian When Velveteen Vargas, an eleven-year-old Fresh Air Fund kid from Brooklyn, comes to stay with a couple in upstate New York, what begins as a two-week visit blossoms into something much more significant. Soon Velvet finds herself torn between her hosts - Ginger, a failed artist and shakily recovered alcoholic and Paul, a college professor - and her own tormented mother. Ginger longs for a child of her own, but Paul continues to refuse. Bemused by her gentle middle-aged hosts, but deeply intuitive in the way of clever children, Velvet quickly senses the longing behind Ginger's rapturous attention. Velvet's one constant becomes her newly discovered passion for horse riding, and her affection for an abused, unruly mare. A profound and stirring novel about how love and family are shaped by place, race and class, The Mare is a stunning exploration of the sometimes unexpected but profound connections made throughout our lives.
"Every morning, seventeen-year-old Maria Anís Rosario takes the subway an hour from her boisterous and close-knit family in Queens to her private high school on the Upper East Side, where she struggles to fit in as one of the only Latina students--until Rocky welcomes her into this new life. White, rebellious, and ignored by her wealthy parents, Rocky uses her money toward one goal: to get away with anything. To Maria, it's a dazzling privilege. As a bond develops between these unlikely friends, neither can see what they share most--jealousy and the desire for each other's lives. But crackling under the surface of their seemingly supportive alliance, the girls begin to commit little betrayals as they strive to get closer to their ideals regardless of the consequences." -- book jacket flap