September 2023 – Sandra Cisneros & Ana Veciana-Suarez

Book of the Month

 

Women Without Shame: Poems

Author: Sandra Cisneros

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group 

ISBN-10: 0593534824 / ISBN-13: 978-0593534823

 

SUMMARY: 

A brave new collection of poems from Sandra Cisneros, the best-selling author of The House on Mango Street.

Available in English and Spanish

It has been twenty-eight years since Sandra Cisneros published a book of poetry. With dozens of never-before-seen poems, Woman Without Shame is a moving collection of songs, elegies, and declarations that chronicle her pilgrimage toward rebirth and the recognition of her prerogative as a woman artist. These bluntly honest and often humorous meditations on memory, desire, and the essential nature of love blaze a path toward self-awareness. For Cisneros, Woman Without Shame is the culmination of her search for homein the Mexico of her ancestors and in her own heart.

Una valiente colección de poemas nuevos de Sandra Cisneros, autora del libro de mayor venta La casa en Mango Street.

Han pasado veintiocho años desde que Sandra Cisneros publicara un libro de poesía. Con decenas de poemas inéditos, Mujer sin vergüenza es una conmovedora colección de canciones, elegías y declaraciones que dan testimonio de su peregrinaje hacia un renacimiento y hacia el reconocimiento de su derecho como mujer artista. Estas meditaciones descarnadas y a menudo humorísticas sobre la memoria, el deseo y la naturaleza esencial del amor abren un camino hacia la autoconciencia. Para Cisneros, Mujer sin vergüenza es la culminación de la búsqueda de un hogar, en el México de sus antepasados y en su propio corazón.

 

About the Author:

SANDRA CISNEROS is internationally acclaimed for her poetry and fiction and has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Lannan Literary Award and the American Book Award, and of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the MacArthur Foundation.

Cisneros is the author of two novels The House on Mango Street and Caramelo; a collection of short stories, Woman Hollering Creek; two books of poetry, My Wicked Ways and Loose Woman; and a children’s book, Hairs/Pelitos.

She is the founder of the Macondo Foundation, an association of writers united to serve underserved communities (www.macondofoundation.org), and is Writer in Residence at Our Lady of the Lake University, San Antonio. She lives in San Antonio, Texas.

 

Photo Credit: Keith Dannemiller

 

 

 

Conversations With Book

 

DULCINEA: A NOVEL

Author: Ana Veciana-Suarez

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing

ISBN-13: 979-820081341/ ASIN: ‎ B0B5NVGBJP

 


SUMMARY:

Dulcinea tells the story of Dolça, the fictional muse behind Don Quixote—a must-read for fans of Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks and The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd.The daughter of a wealthy Barcelona merchant, young Dolça Llull Prat is besotted with the dashing, bootstrapping Miguel Cervantes from their first meeting. Despite Miguel’s entreaties, the ever-practical Dolça, with her love of luxury and her devotion to her own art, repeatedly refuses to upend her life for him, although she always welcomes his attentions on her own terms. When Miguel renders her as the lowly Dulcinea in his great Quixote, revealing their association, he commits an unforgivable offense and their decades-long affinity is severed—until he reaches out to her one last time. 
The roads of Spain are no place for a noblewoman seeking to reunite with her former lover, but Dolça needs to unburden herself of a secret. Disguised as a peasant and accompanied by her trusted nursemaid, Dolça makes the difficult trek, facing bandits, the menacing reach of the Inquisition, and her own misgivings. Will she arrive in time? And if she does, will she be able to tell Miguel what she has concealed from him for so many years? A richly imagined heroine, Dolça leaps from these pages as a woman of flesh and blood, one committed to both duty and desire. Dulcinea explores the choices we make in life, the regrets we harbor, and the courage we find to make amends.

 

 

About the Author:

ANA VECIANA-SUAREZ is a syndicated columnist for Tribune Content Agency and author of the historical novel, DULCINEA. She’s also written the young adult novel, Flight to Freedom (Scholastic) and a collection of essays, Birthday Parties in Heaven: Thoughts on Life, Love, Grief, and Other Matters of the Heart. (Plume) A previous book, The Chin Kiss King: A Novel (FSG) was nominated for the prestigious IMPAC Award, an international competition in Dublin. Two nonfiction books about the Hispanic media were published by The Media Institute, a think tank in Washington D.C.

In 2019, she was awarded the Cintas Fellowship for Creative Writing. She has also received an Individual Artist Fellowship Award from the state of Florida for fiction writing. She lives with her husband in Miami, where she eats two Dove dark chocolates every morning before she writes. Now that her children are grown and out of the house, she admits they taught her immeasurable patience and humility.

Twitter @AnaVeciana

Instagram @anaveciana