Zusatztext "Nelly Rosario's debut novel stands out . . . for its joyously profane wit and plainspoken! unforced poetry."-- San Francisco Chronicle [A] transporting tale . . . vigorous! evocative prose... The Miami Herald Written in spare! penetrating language...exuberantly paced! sexy... The Village Voice "Like Julia Alvarez's [first] novel! Song of the Water Saints explores what families pass down! and what they toss aside." The Denver Post "Rosario's writing is lively and rich with emotion throughout .... it is impossible not to be moved." The Washington Post Book World An electrifying debut. Powerfully written! meticulously imagined! and arresting to its core! Nelly Rosario's novel is a flame for the mind and heart! the sort you are endlessly grateful for. Junot Díaz! author of Drown Effortlessly intermingles three generations of women! dropping unadorned dialogue amid spare and lovely prose. Entertainment Weekly Rosario does an excellent job conjuring the colorful! vibrant scenes of Caribbean life. Los Angeles Times Every small scene that Nelly Rosario writes reaches toward a larger truth out in the world! and also a smaller! more intimate truth. . . . There is a physicality in the language that speaks of an angry! human spirituality and the struggle to be alive. The Oregonian Lush and assured . . . each brief chapter reads like a snapshot of a soul. Time Out New York Like a Caribbean Scheherazade! Rosario casts a spell on her readers with this saga of three generations of Dominican women whose yearning becomes our own. What they want and what we get reading Song of the Water Saints is a sense of luminous world! complex and layered! full of passion and adventure. Julia Alvarez! author of In the Time of the Butterflies Rosario's dialogue deftly approximates the rhythm of Dominican Spanish. . . . The effect are! by turns! bawdy and hilarious! a kind of verbal jousting. Minneapolis Star Tribune A gorgeous first novel! epic and poetic. Edwidge Danticat! author of Breath! Eyes! Memory Poetic without being flowery and overstated . . . raw realism and strong character portrayal. Mosaic A richly textured novel! in which gleaming! perfectly sketched images are vividly juxtaposed with gritty reality. Dominican Times Informationen zum Autor Nelly Rosario was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in Brooklyn, where she now lives. She received a B.A. in engineering from MIT and an M.F.A. in fiction writing from Columbia University. She was named a Writer on the Verge by the Village Voice Literary Supplement in 2001. Song of the Water Saints won the 2002 Pen Open Book Award. Klappentext This vibrant, provocative début novel explores the dreams and struggles of three generations of Dominican women. Graciela, born on the outskirts of Santo Domingo at the turn of the century, is a headstrong adventuress who comes of age during the U.S. occupation. Too poor to travel beyond her imagination, she is frustrated by the monotony of her life, which erodes her love affairs and her relationship with Mercedes, her daughter. Mercedes, abandoned by Graciela at thirteen, turns to religion for solace and, after managing to keep a shop alive during the Trujillo dictatorship, emigrates to New York with her husband and granddaughter, Leila. Leila inherits her great-grandmother Graciela's passion-driven recklessness. But, caught as she is between cultures, her freedom arrives with its own set of obligations and dangers.Invasions - 1916 SANTO DOMINGO, REPÚBLICA DOMINICANA Graciela and Silvio stood hand in hand on El Malecón, sea breeze polishing their faces. Silvio hurled stones out to the waves and Graciela ...

Autorentext

Nelly Rosario was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in Brooklyn, where she now lives. She received a B.A. in engineering from MIT and an M.F.A. in fiction writing from Columbia University. She was named a “Writer on the Verge” by the Village Voice Literary Supplement in 2001. Song of the Water Saints **won the 2002 Pen Open Book Award.

Klappentext

This vibrant, provocative début novel explores the dreams and struggles of three generations of Dominican women. Graciela, born on the outskirts of Santo Domingo at the turn of the century, is a headstrong adventuress who comes of age during the U.S. occupation. Too poor to travel beyond her imagination, she is frustrated by the monotony of her life, which erodes her love affairs and her relationship with Mercedes, her daughter. Mercedes, abandoned by Graciela at thirteen, turns to religion for solace and, after managing to keep a shop alive during the Trujillo dictatorship, emigrates to New York with her husband and granddaughter, Leila. Leila inherits her great-grandmother Graciela's passion-driven recklessness. But, caught as she is between cultures, her freedom arrives with its own set of obligations and dangers.

Zusammenfassung
This vibrant, provocative début novel explores the dreams and struggles of three generations of Dominican women. Graciela, born on the outskirts of Santo Domingo at the turn of the century, is a headstrong adventuress who comes of age during the U.S. occupation. Too poor to travel beyond her imagination, she is frustrated by the monotony of her life, which erodes her love affairs and her relationship with Mercedes, her daughter. Mercedes, abandoned by Graciela at thirteen, turns to religion for solace and, after managing to keep a shop alive during the Trujillo dictatorship, emigrates to New York with her husband and granddaughter, Leila. Leila inherits her great-grandmother Graciela’s passion-driven recklessness. But, caught as she is between cultures, her freedom arrives with its own set of obligations and dangers.

Leseprobe
Invasions - 1916

SANTO DOMINGO, REPÚBLICA DOMINICANA

Graciela and Silvio stood hand in hand on El Malecón, sea breeze polishing their faces. Silvio hurled stones out to the waves and Graciela bunched up her skirt to search for more pebbles. Her knees were ashy and she wore her spongy hair in four knots. A rusty lard can filled with pigeon peas, label long worn from trips to the market, was by her feet. Silvio's straw hat was in Graciela's hands, and quickly, she turned to toss it to the water. The hat fluttered like a hungry seagull, then was lapped up by foam. Silvio's kiss pinned Graciela against the railing.

It was a hazy day. The hot kissing made Graciela squint against the silver light. Beyond her lashes, Silvio was a sepia prince.

–That yanqui over there's lookin' at us, he murmured into Graciela's mouth. He pulled out his hand from the rip in her skirt. Graciela turned to see a pink man standing a few yards away from them. She noticed that the yanqui wore a hat and a vest–he surely did not seem to be a Marine. When she was with Silvio, Graciela forgot to worry about anyone telling on her to Mai and Pai, much less panic over yanquis and their Marine boots scraping the cobblestones of the Colonial Quarter.

Passion burned stronger than fear. Graciela turned back to Silvio.

–Forget him. Her pelvis dug into his until she felt iron.

Graciela and Silvio were too lost in their tangle of tongues to care that a few yards away, the yanqui was glad for a brief break from the brutal sun that tormented his skin. With her tongue tracing Silvio's neck, Graciela couldn't care less that Theodore Roosevelt's "soft voice and big stick" on Latin America had dipped the yanqui the furthest south he had ever been from New York City. Silvio's hands crawled back into the rip in Graciela's skirt; she would not blush if she learned that the yanqui spying on them had already photographed the Marines stationed on her side of the island, who were there to "order and pacify," in all their debauchery; that dozens of her fellow Dominicans somberly populated the yanqui's photo negatives; and that the lush Dominican landscape had left marks o…