Product Description

various translators, 'Secret Weavers Series' Vol 9

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1298567 in Books
• Published on: 1995-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Amazon.com Review
I admit that I'm partial to Latin American fiction because of its element of surprise, the hidden subtleties that grace its magical narratives. It's like catching a glimpse of a bird of paradise. Published by White Pine Press, this anthology is the first collection of its kind and includes fabulous stories written by Chilean women from 1920 to the present. From angels to hopeful mortals, from dreams to the limits of the bone house that is our body, these stories speak visions that have been silenced as subversive or "merely domestic."

From Publishers Weekly
"Is, in fact, writing a subversive impulse for women, as opposed to what men rather vaingloriously define as craftsmanship?" This question is posed by the narrator of a Lucia Guerra story addressing an Argentine writer, but it reverberates throughout this outstanding collection. To compile what is touted as the first-ever collection of Chilean women's writing, Agosin searched "the great books of literary history" but, she says, "the panorama was desolate, so I perused marginal journals and old fashion magazines. It was there...that I heard the voices of these long-lost women." Given the number of translators, there is an incredible smoothness of tone here. And, perhaps reflecting their sources, female concerns are central. Ana Vasquez's secretary gets invited to an artsy gathering and worries over what to wear and how to act. In a wonderful run-on monologue, Marta Blanco's newly pregnant woman runs the gamut of emotions. Agata Gligo's mother must explain to the police how, although she only has two children, seven bicycles have been stolen from them. Given Agosin's emphasis on each story's reflection of "the woman who wrote it and of her historical situation." it is really too bad that the stories aren't dated. Still, this is an important work and it is also a great read.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
Writings by Latin American women aren't unusual these days, but this anthology of stories by Chilean women represents a unique work where contributors come from a range of economic and class structures within one country. Feminine literary voices have long been repressed in Latin American society: Agosin helps remedy this through an anthology put together by topic and containing important stories by both older and younger women. -- Midwest Book Review