Book of the Month
A WOMAN OF ENDURANCE
Author: Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa
Publisher: Amistad
ISBN-10: 0063062224 / ISBN-13: 978-0063062221
SUMMARY:
A Woman of Endurance, set in nineteenth-century Puerto Rican plantation society, follows Pola, a deeply spiritual African woman who is captured and later sold for the purpose of breeding future slaves. The resulting babies are taken from her as soon as they are born. Pola loses the faith that has guided her and becomes embittered and defensive. The dehumanizing violence of her life almost destroys her. But this is not a novel of defeat but rather one of survival, regeneration, and reclamation of common humanity. (This book is also available in Spanish.)
About the Author:
Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa was born in Puerto Rico. As a child she was sent to live with her grandparents in the South Bronx, where she was introduced to the culture of rural Puerto Rico, including the storytelling skills that came naturally to the women, especially the older women, in her family. Much of her work is based on her experiences during this time. Llanos-Figueroa taught creative writing, language and literature in the New York City school system before becoming a young-adult librarian and writer. Her first novel, Daughters of the Stone, was a Finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, and her short stories have been published in anthologies and literary magazines such as Breaking Ground: Anthology of Puerto Rican Women Writers in New York 1980-2012, Growing Up Girl, Afro-Hispanic Review, Pleaides, Latino Book Review, Label Me Latina/o and Kweli Journal. She lives in New York City.
The hardcover edition of Daughters of the Stone was shortlisted as a 2010 Finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize. In 2020, the self-published paperback edition won the 16th Annual National Indie Excellence® Awards for Multicultural Fiction. Dahlma was one of the awardees of the 2021 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Fiction, the 2021 City Artists Corps grant awards, and the 2021 Letras Boricuas Fellowship/Mellon Foundation Award. Dahlma’s short stories have appeared in various anthologies and literary journals throughout the United States, Africa, and Brazil.
Website: www.DahlmaLlanosFigueroa.com
Facebook: @AmistadBooks
Goodreads: @DahlmaLlanosFigueroa
Twitter: @writer1949 @AmistadBooks
Instagram: @DahlmaLlanosFigueroa @amistadbooks
Conversations With Book
THE TOWN OF BABYLON: A NOVEL
Author: Alejandro Varela
Publisher: Astra House
ISBN: 1662601034 / ISBN-13: 978-1662601033 ASIN: B097QQW96K
SUMMARY:
In this contemporary debut novel—an intimate portrait of queer, racial, and class identity —Andrés, a gay Latinx professor, returns to his suburban hometown in the wake of his husband’s infidelity. There he finds himself with no excuse not to attend his twenty-year high school reunion, and hesitantly begins to reconnect with people he used to call friends. Over the next few weeks, while caring for his aging parents and navigating the neighborhood where he grew up, Andrés falls into old habits with friends he thought he’d left behind. Before long, he unexpectedly becomes entangled with his first love and is forced to tend to past wounds.
About the Author:
Alejandro Varela is based in New York. His work has appeared in The Point magazine, Boston Review, Harper’s Magazine, The Rumpus, Joyland Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, The Offing, Blunderbuss Magazine, Pariahs (an anthology, SFA Press, 2016), the Southampton Review, and The New Republic. He is a 2019 Jerome Fellow in Literature, and his graduate studies were in public health.
Website: https://alejandrovarela.work/ https://astrapublishinghouse.com/
Twitter: @drovarela @astrahousebooks
Instagram: @alejandrovarela.work @astrahousebooks
Goodreads: @alejandrovarela
Facebook: @astrahousebooks
