Download or read book The Accidental Santera written by Irete Lazo and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2008-10-14 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A one-of-a-kind novel that plunges readers into the secrets of Afro-Cuban Santeria—a world of fascinating beauty, pulsating rhythms, and great mystery. Gabrielle Segovia, Ph.D., is struggling to build a career as a Latina scientist, cope with her third miscarriage, and resuscitate her marriage to fellow biology professor Benito Cruz. Becoming a santera is not in her plans. But everything changes when her best friend, the feisty Patricia Muñoz, drags her into a French Quarter voodoo shop during a conference in New Orleans. When Gabrielle gets home to the San Francisco Bay Area, the predictions from her on-a-whim reading begin to come true. That's when she learns she hails from a long line of practitioners of Santeria, the religion created when Yoruba slaves combined their ancient rituals with Catholicism. Out of desperation to become a mother and save both her job and her marriage, Gabrielle turns to Puerto Rican relatives living in Miami she hasn't seen since she was a child. She finds herself warmly embraced by three generations of Segovia santeras and drawn into their world of séances, sacred drums, and ritual animal sacrifice. Unexpectedly marked for initiation by the gods and goddesses of the Yoruba pantheon, Gabrielle must decide whether she can bring herself to answer the call. And, if she chooses, commit to the seemingly contradictory life of a scientist who is also a santera. In this powerful debut novel, Irete Lazo captures a vibrant world still unknown to many and relates a journey that is at once funny, heart-wrenching, and, ultimately, triumphant.
Download or read book Across a Hundred Mountains written by Reyna Grande and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-05-15 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Grande puts a human face on the epic story about those who make it across the border into America, those who never make it across, and those who are left behind.
Download or read book The New Orleans of Fiction written by James A. Kaser and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2014-07-29 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The importance of New Orleans in American culture has made the city's place in the American imagination a crucial topic for literary scholars and cultural historians. While databases of bibliographical information on New Orleans-centered fiction are available, they are of little use to scholars researching works written before the 1980s. In The New Orleans of Fiction: A Research Guide, James A. Kaser provides detailed synopses for more than 500 works of fiction significantly set in New Orleans and published between 1836 and 1980. The synopses include plot summaries, names of major characters, and an indication of physical settings. An appendix provides bibliographical information for works dating from 1981 well into the 21st century, while a biographical section provides basic information about the authors, some of whom are obscure and would be difficult to find in other sources. Written to assist researchers in locating works of fiction for analysis, the plot summaries highlight ways in which the works touch on major aspects of social history and cultural studies (i.e., class, ethnicity, gender, immigrant experience, and race). The book is also a useful reader advisory tool for librarians and readers who want to identify materials for leisure reading, particularly since genre, juvenile, and young adult fiction—as well as literary fiction—are included.
Download or read book The African Heritage of Latinx and Caribbean Literature written by Sarah Quesada and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-08-04 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The African Heritage of Latinx and Caribbean Literature unearths a buried African archive within widely-read Latinx writers of the last fifty years. It challenges dominant narratives in World Literature and transatlantic studies that ignore Africa's impact in broader Latin American culture. Sarah Quesada argues that these canonical works evoke textual memorials of African memory. She shows how the African Atlantic haunts modern Latinx and Caribbean writing, and examines the disavowal or distortion of the African subject in the constructions of national, racial, sexual, and spiritual Latinx identity. Quesada shows how themes such as the 19th century 'scramble for Africa,' the decolonizing wars, Black internationalism, and the neoliberal turn are embedded in key narratives. Drawing from multilingual archives about West and Central Africa, she examines how the legacies of colonial French, Iberian, British and U.S. Imperialisms have impacted on the relationships between African and Latinx identities. This is the first book-length project to address the African colonial and imperial inheritance of Latinx literature.
Download or read book Ash Caribbean Literary Aesthetic in the Cuban Colombian Costa Rican and Panamanian Novel of Resistance written by Thomas Wayne Edison and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-09-28 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ashé-Caribbean Literary Aesthetic in the Cuban, Colombian, Costa Rican, and Panamanian Novel of Resistance contributes to understanding the important role that African-influenced spiritualcultures play in literature that challenges the concept that European aesthetics are superior to African-inspired cultures. Thomas W. Edison highlights the novels of four courageous Caribbean writers who have used their novels to integrate aspects of African ontology with literary techniques, themes, and history. The common element in these works is the inclusion of African-inspired faith traditions and culture. As a result of this perspective, their literature stands out as keen examples of Ashé-Caribbean resistance literature. While each writer presents their unique literary style in the works, collectively they draw on a foundation of the Afro-Caribbean. The Circum-Caribbean region will be the geographical unit because of its collective history of slavery, colonial rule, and parallel patterns of religious syncretism. This book makes an important literary connection among Caribbean Hispanophone nations.
Download or read book Living Santer a written by Michael Atwood Mason and published by Smithsonian Institution. This book was released on 2002-08-17 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1992 Smithsonian anthropologist Michael Atwood Mason traveled to Cuba for initiation as a priest into the Santería religion. Since then he has created an active oricha “house” and has initiated five others as priests. He is a rare combination: a scholar-practitioner who is equally fluent in his profession and his religion. Interweaving his roles as researcher and priest, Mason explores Santería as a contemporary phenomenon and offers an understanding of its complexity through his own experiences and those of its many practitioners. Balancing deftly between a devotee's account of participation and an anthropologist's theoretical analysis, Living Santería offers an original and insightful understanding of this growing religious tradition.
Download or read book The Yoruba Domino Oracle written by Carlos G. y Poenna and published by Weiser Books. This book was released on 2000-03-01 with total page 99 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This easy-to-follow guide reveals the simple yet powerful Yoruba tradition of using dominoes for divination. While the game of Dominoes is beloved across the globe, the Yoruba tradition of Africa reveals how the ubiquitous tiles can also be used for divination. Best known in Santeria, the domino oracle is universal and may be consulted by anyone. In The Yoruba Domino Oracle, Carlos G. y Poenna explains how to perform domino readings and interpret each tile as well as their combinations. For each reading, y Poenna gives instructions for offerings or prayers to reader’s chosen spirits, whether they be Yoruba deities or Catholic saints.
Download or read book Tentacle written by Rita Indiana and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An electric tale of apocalypse, sex and time travel from one of the Caribbean's most extraordinary cultural figures.
Download or read book Library Journal written by and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 874 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Astral Plane written by Teresa Dovalpage and published by University of New Orleans Press. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In her new compilation of short fiction The Astral Plane: Stories of Cuba, the Southwest and Beyond, Teresa Dovalpage offers a diversity characters in the midst of decisions and transitions. In the presence of South Indian Yogis, New Mexican Santeros, Afro-Cuban Orishas, Edgar Allen Poe, The Beatles and La Llorona, the author details moments in the lives of Cubans, Nuevo Mexicanos and Anglo-Americans. The stories are sometimes comical and often tragic but always engaging. In each one, Dovalpage reminds us that any choice we make, from deciding to leave the country, to walking around the block to engaging in a conversation with a total stranger, could become momentous. In the blink of an eye, the insignificant turns historic. Although each story is self contained and can be read independently, it is when they are read together that they are most affective, unsettling, comic and heartfelt. Characters, storylines, and motifs reappear from one tale to the next, informing and enriching each other. While every story is distinct, these protagonists, who are from varied cultural and economic backgrounds, share common struggles as they stumble in search for a way to escape or a place to land, to live, to be who they are. There are no heroes in these stories but they are not villains either, much like in everyday life. Oddly, that is what is most comforting, for lack of a better word, about The Astral Plane: Stories of Cuba, the Southwest and Beyond, at least for this reader. Dovalpage's characters exude an unapologetic normalcy in their flaws that even toothless false prophets, calculating serial killers, conniving prostitutes, and scheming mothers-in-law become endearing in the end. (Carolina Caballero LatinoLA, February 2, 2012) The stories are thoroughly Cuban, original, delightful, and unexpected. In this cohesive collection, Ms. Dovalpage’s prodigious talent takes us on a dazzling journey of high drama, whimsical imagery, nail-biting suspense, and laugh-out-loud hilarity. Along the way she lays bare the reality of life in Cuba and totally debunks the myths of the Castro Revolution. One favorite passage includes a lyrical, evocative description of El Malecón that made me weep with longing for the sights, sounds, and smells of that drive; a paragraph later I erupted in laughter at a character’s offhand comment. This savory collection is certain to become a favorite read, highly recommended. (February 4, 2012) Teresa Dovalpage’s latest collection of short stories The Astral Plane features a set of stories where the characters have a tenuous connection to each other. The stories showcase how the Cuban Hispanic diaspora spread with contacts with former relatives, escapees via the rafts, and with contacts with visitors and universities that can travel to Cuba with ease. Thus, stories take place partly in Cuba, in Miami, and in Albuquerque. Throughout the tales, the change brought about by Fidel Castro seep out in details about the way people live, the food they eat, the political pressures to conform, the desire for US Cash and lifestyle and the turn to the Santeria religion. Teresa Dovalpage constructs her stories with a heavy dose of metaphor that is artfully shared by taking a distant point of view and by carefully constructing her plots. The plots unfold in a chatty fashion where you learn about the people that surround a character, their family, their friends, and their style of life. Readers will enjoy the unusual mix of character types, settings, and plots that can introduce them to a politically strong minority population in the United States. They make a potent case for democracy and capitalism. (Sheri Fresonke Harper The Compulsive Reader, March 2012) The Astral Plane is the latest book by Cuban author Teresa Dovalpage. Ziva Sahl describes the stories in Dovalpage's collection as, 'thoroughly Cuban, original, delightful, and unexpected.' I had the chance to read the book and can only say that The Astral Plane is another fine accomplishment by one of our most talented Latina writers these days. (Mayra Calvani The Examiner, May 22, 2012)
Download or read book Queen of Bones written by Teresa Dovalpage and published by Soho Press. This book was released on 2019-11-12 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set between Cubas twenty years apart, Havana native Teresa Dovalpage’s new murder mystery explores lingering grudges between old friends and lovers separated by Castro's final sanctioned raft exodus. Juan, a Cuban construction worker who has settled in Albuquerque, returns to Havana for the first time since fleeing Cuba by raft twenty years ago. He is traveling with his American wife, Sharon, and hopes to reconnect with Victor, his best friend from college—and, unbeknownst to Sharon, he also hopes to discover what has become of two ex-girlfriends, Elsa and Rosita. Juan is surprised to learn that Victor has become Victoria and runs a popular drag show at the local hot spot Café Arabia. Elsa has married a wealthy foreigner, and Rosita, still single, works at the Havana cemetery. When one of these women turns up dead, it will cost Padrino, a Santería priest and former detective on the Havana police force, more than he expects to untangle the group’s lies and hunt down the killer.
Download or read book Santer a written by Migene Gonz?lez-Wippler and published by Llewellyn Worldwide. This book was released on 1994 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the Yoruba of West Africa were brought to Cuba as slaves, they preserved their religious heritage by disguising their gods as Catholic saints and worshiping them in secret. The resulting religion is Santería, a blend of primitive magic and Catholicism now practiced by an estimated five million Hispanic Americans. Blending informed study with her personal experience, González-Wippler describes Santería¿s pantheon of gods ("orishas "); the priests ("santeros" ); the divining shells used to consult the gods (the "Diloggún" ) and the herbal potions prepared as medicinal cures and for magic ("Ewe ) "as well as controversial ceremonies-including animal sacrifice. She has obtained remarkable photographs and interviews with Santería leaders that highlight aspects of the religion rarely revealed to nonbelievers. This book satisfies the need for knowledge of this expanding religious force that links its devotees in America to a spiritual wisdom seemingly lost in modern society.
Download or read book Decolonizing Epistemologies written by Ada María Isasi-Díaz and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This anthology gathers the work of three generations of Latina/o theologians and philosopher who have taken up the task of decolonizing epistemology by transforming their respective disciplines from the standpoint liberation thought and of what has been called the "decolonial turn" in social theory, theology, and philosophy. At the heart of this collection is the unveiling of subjugated knowledge elaborated by Latina/o scholars who take seriously their social location and that of their communities of accountability and how these impact the development of a different episteme. Refusing to continue to allow to be made invisible by the dominant discourse, this group of scholars show the unsuspecting and original ways in which Latina/o social and historical loci in the US are generative places for the creation of new matrixes of knowledge. The book articulates a new point of departure for the self-understanding of Latina/os, for other marginalized and oppress groups, and for all those seeking to engage the move beyond coloniality as it continues to be present in this age of globalization.
Download or read book The Accidental Tourist written by Anne Tyler and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Book Review Index 2009 Cumulation written by Dana Ferguson and published by Book Review Index Cumulation. This book was released on 2009-08 with total page 1304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Book Review Index provides quick access to reviews of books, periodicals, books on tape and electronic media representing a wide range of popular, academic and professional interests. The up-to-date coverage, wide scope and inclusion of citations for both newly published and older materials make Book Review Index an exceptionally useful reference tool. More than 600 publications are indexed, including journals and national general interest publications and newspapers. Book Review Index is available in a three-issue subscription covering the current year or as an annual cumulation covering the past year.
Download or read book Roger Fishbite written by Emily Prager and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Lucky Linderhof is thirteen, cute, worryingly precocious, and sassy. She's also in a juvenile-detention facility awaiting trial for the murder of the man she calls Roger Fishbite." "Lucky's beautiful, dysfunctional mother, "an old-movie girl thrust into a world of cell phones and E-mail," had taken refuge from a failed marriage in exotic cocktails and weird furnishings - until the fateful day she decided to let her basement flat to a big, blond Texan who looked uncannily like her ex-husband, except for the gleam in his eyes."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Download or read book Dreaming in Cuban written by Cristina García and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2011-06-08 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “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
