Books in Spanish
El amor en los tiempos del cólera (Love in the Time of Cholera). by Gabriel García Márquez
Price: $11.34.
This book is one of those pieces of eternity that get stuck in the deepest places of one's hearth, it's fidelity and passion, fantasy and complicity to the service of true love. Not a soap-opera but a wonderful piece of literature and expression.
Memoria de mis putas tristes. by Gabriel García Márquez
Price: $12.56.
Contrary to the title, which most of my American friends find shocking, this is a wonderful book. The story is shorter than most he has written, but equally powerful and beautifully written. The novel touches a subject that most pretend does not exist, but it is a love story none-the-less and filled with magical realism. There is much symbolism in the character's memories of the women he could have loved but didn't, the women who loved him, the regrets of his past and his re-discovery of life when he finds himself falling in love with an unlikely girl, in an unlikely place, with unlikely results. The non-consumation of his love is the greatest symbol of his entire life.
Hija de la fortuna (Daughter of Fortune). by Isabel Allende
Price: $13.95.
This enchating story begins in the mid 19th century. with baby Eliza being abandoned at the doorstep of the wealthy Sommers family. An english family who immigrated to the newly independent Valparaiso , Chile. Rose Sommers raises this child as her own, even though her brother Jeremy does not approve of it. Eliza grows up to be a confident girlwho falls in love with a poor young man who offers her nothing but his written feelings.he rushes off to San Francisco, California, in search of gold. 16 Year old Eliza decides to followhim when she finds out she is pregnant. she leaves behind her family, her beloved mamaFresia and a very predictable life ,in which ,others will decide for her in every imaginable way. In this adventurous journey in search of her lover, Eliza will find her own freedom. and a lifeprobably desired by many women of her time. Ms. Allende kept my heart pounding throughout the whole story.
One Hundred Years of Solitude. by Gabriel García Márquez
Price: $12.60.
The fecund, savage, irresistable...you have the sense of living, along with the Buendias (and the rest), in them, through them and in spite of them, and all their loves, madnesses and wars, their alliances, compromises, dreams and deaths...the characters rear up large and rippling with life against the green texture of nature itself.
Como agua para chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate). by Laura Esquivel
Price: $11.65.
Earthy, magical, and utterly charming, this tale of family life in turn-of-the-century Mexico became a best-selling phenomenon with its winning blend of poignant romance and bittersweet wit. The classic love story takes place on the De la Garza ranch, as the tyrannical owner, Mama Elena, chops onions at the kitchen table in her final days of pregnancy. While still in her mother's womb, her daughter to be weeps so violently she causes an early labor, and little Tita slips out amid the spices and fixings for noodle soup. This early encounter with food soon becomes a way of life, and Tita grows up to be a master chef. She shares special points of her favorite preparations with listeners throughout the story.
Antes Que Anochezca (Before Night Falls). by Reinaldo Arenas
Price: $25.95.
In Before Night Falls, Arenas recounts his journey from a poverty-stricken childhood in rural Cuba to his death in New York four decades later. In between he tells of his odyssey from adolescent rebel fighting for the Revolution, through his suppression as a writer, his disillusionment with Castro, his imprisonment and torture, and his eventual flight from Cuba. Before Night Falls illuminates the importance of Arenas' life as a symbol of the individual against society and of the potential for art to liberate, and confirms the power of the outcast to see and record the truth. In distilled and powerful language, Before Night Falls tells Arenas' own story -- a Kafkaesque life re-created in his highly acclaimed novels.
Cien sonetos de amor. by Pablo Neruda
Price:$6.95.
"Con mucha humildad hice estos sonetos de madera, les di esta opaca y pura sustancia", escribió Pablo Neruda. La desnudez que elige aquí el autor rehúye deliberadamente las pautas sonoras y constructivas del soneto clásico. Se desvanece el patrón métrico y rítmico invariable, la retórica estéril desaparece y la excelencia del encuentro amoroso cobra nueva intensidad, porque gracias a este despojamiento voluntario la palabra palpita, se libera la imagen y los amantes se reconocen en la emoción poética.
El libro de los abrazos (The Book of Embraces). by Eduardo Galeano
Price: $25.40
My First Spanish Word Book (Mi primer libro de palabras en español). by Angela Wilkes, Rubi Borgia
Price: $16.99.
Full-color photographs and simple, clear text give bilingual children a head start on a lifetime of reading. In the tradition of My First Word Book comes this bilingual volume filled with 1,000 firstwords. All objects are shown in bright, full-color photographs labeled both in English and in thesecond language.
La Pluma Magica : Cuentos de America Latina. by Ilan Stavans, Flora Schiminovich
Price: $38.90.
This collection of Latin-American literature features short stories of revenge and hope, love and death, written by established masters as well as by new voices.
The Color of Summer. by Reinaldo Arenas, Andrew Hurley
Price: $15.00.
The Color of Summer, Arenas's finest comic achievement, is also the fulfillment of his life's work, the Pentagonia, a five-volume cycle of autobiographical novels he began writing in his early twenties. Although it is the penultimate installment in his "secret history of Cuba," it was, in fact, the last book Arenas wrote before his death in 1990. A tale of survival by wits and wit, The Color of Summer is ultimately a powerful and passionate story about the triumph of the human spirit over the forces of political and sexual repression.
El asalto (The Assault). by Reinaldo Arenas
Price: $16.00.
The author of the brilliant and highly acclaimed memoir, Before Night Falls, Reinaldo Arenas concluded his sequence of five novels - at once a "secret history of Cuba" and a writer's autobiography - with an allegorical satire. In The Assault, he paints a harrowing, yet at times boldly entertaining, Kafkaesque picture of a dehumanized people and the despair of anobserver/narrator himself clinging to sanity. This profane narrative, filled with righteous rage,takes us on a surreal journey through a blackly humorous shadowland where philosophicaldiscussion, homosexuality, and forgetting the words to heroic anthems are comparablecrimes - and a cockroach hunt makes a national holiday. With echoes of Rabelais, Swift,Orwell, and the films of Lois Bunuel, The Assault crowns the work of one of the mostvisionary writers to have emerged from Castro's Cuba, a writer whom Octavio Paz called"remarkable... as much for his intellectual dignity as for his talent.
El beso de la mujer araña (Kiss of the Spider Woman). by Manuel Puig
Price: $7.95.
Kiss of the Spider Woman is an elegant and fascinating tale about love and victimization. In an Argentinian prison, two men share a cell; Molina, a homosexual window dresser, and Valentin, an articulate and zealous Marxist revolutionary obsessed with the memory of a woman who abandoned the cause. Both are gradually transformed by the cautious but growing friendship and by the Molina's obsession with the fantasy and romance of the cinema.
Don Quijote de la Mancha. Edición del IV centenario (The 400th Anniversary Edition). by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Price: $9.56.
Edición conmemorativa del IV Centenario de la publicación de El QuijoteLa Real Academia Española conmemora el IV Centenario de Don Quijote de la Manchacon la publicación de una edición de la obra de Miguel de Cervantes preparada por Francisco Rico.
La ciudad y los perros (The Time of the Hero). by Mario Vargas Llosa
Price: $12.99.
La novela contiene diferentes narradores e historias entrelazadas que tienen como eje principal la vida de un grupo de estudiantes de un colegio militar de Lima. Las historias del Poeta (proveniente de una familia con comodidad económica), el Jaguar (producto de la violencia y pobreza de su pasado) y el Esclavo (incapaz de enfrentar el ambiente violento) nos muestran las grandes desigualdades y conflictos de la sociedad peruana. La convivencia dramática de estos personajes en el colegio militar es un ejemplo de las dificultades de interrelación que se dan en la sociedad.
Los de abajo (The Underdogs). by Mariano Azuela, Marta Portal
Price: $11.35.
Written in 1915 and first published in a small El Paso paper, LOS DE ABAJO has gained universal recognition as the greatest novel of the Mexican Revolution. It is one of the first novels in which political revolution as the means of freedom and self-determination was addressed as a serious matter.
Books in Spanish for Children and Young Adults: An Annotated Guide / Libros Infantiles y Juveniles en Espanol: Una Guia Anotada
Price: $29.50.
Like its predecessors, this book will guide any adult interested in selecting books in Spanish for children of preschool through high-school age. Most of the books included have been published since 1986, were in print as of December 1988, and come from Argentina, Belgium, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Spain, the U.S., Uruguay, and Venezuela. With appendices listing book dealers and author and title indexes.Author Biography: Isabel Schon (Ph.D., University of Colorado) is a professor of library science, Arizona State University, Tempe. Among her widely acclaimed publications are "A Bicultural Heritage; A Hispanic Heritage, Series I-III; "and "Basic Collection of Children's Books in Spanish" (Scarecrow). She won ALA's Grolier Award in 1986.