Caramelo (Spanish Edition) - by Sandra Cisneros (Paperback)

About the Book

The celebrated author of "The House on Mango Street" gives us an extraordinary new novel, told in language of blazing originality: a multigenerational story of a Mexican-American family whose voices create a dazzling weave of humor, passion, and poignancy--the very stuff of life.

Book Synopsis

La célebre autora de La casa en Mango Street, y ganadora del PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature 2019, nos ofrece una nueva y extraordinaria novela narrada en un lenguaje de una originalidad arro-lladora: es la historia de varias generaciones de una familia méxicoamericana cuyas voces crean un des-lumbrante y vivo tapiz de humor y de pasión, hecho con la esencia misma de la vida.

La abuela de Lala Reyes es descendiente de una familia de afamados reboceros. El rebozo de rayas color caramelo es el más bello de todos y aquél que llega a pertenecer a Lala, al igual que la historia familiar que éste representa. La novela comienza con el viaje anual en automóvil de los Reyes--una caravana desbordante de niños, risas y pleitos-- desde Chicago hasta el «otro lado» la Ciudad de México. Es aquí que Lala cada año escucha las historias de su familia y trata de separar la verdad de las «mentiras sanas» que han resonado de una generación a otra. Viajamos desde la Ciudad de México, que era el «París del Nuevo Mundo» a las calles llenas de música de Chicago en los albores de los locos años veinte y, finalmente, a la difícil adolescencia de Lala en la tierra no tan exactamente prometida de San Antonio, Texas.

Caramelo es una historia sabia, vital y romántica, sobre el lugar de origen, algunas veces real, algu-nas veces imaginado. Vívida, graciosa, íntima e histórica, es una obra brillante destinada a convertirse en un clásico: una nueva novela de gran importancia de una de las escritoras más queridas de nuestro país.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

From the winner of the 2018 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature.

Every year, Ceyala "Lala" Reyes' family--aunts, uncles, mothers, fathers, and Lala's six older brothers--packs up three cars and, in a wild ride, drive from Chicago to the Little Grandfather and Awful Grandmother's house in Mexico City for the summer. Struggling to find a voice above the boom of her brothers and to understand her place on this side of the border and that, Lala is a shrewd observer of family life. But when she starts telling the Awful Grandmother's life story, seeking clues to how she got to be so awful, grandmother accuses Lala of exaggerating. Soon, a multigenerational family narrative turns into a whirlwind exploration of storytelling, lies, and life. Like the cherished rebozo, or shawl, that has been passed down through generations of Reyes women, Caramelo is alive with the vibrations of history, family, and love.

Review Quotes

"All the energy of a riotous family fiesta. . . . Cisneros is undeniably at her peak." --The Washington Post

"A glorious book, Caramelo is crowded with the souvenirs and memories of the dramas of everyday life...like an oversized family album, intimate as well as universal." --The Philadelphia Inquirer

"A joyful, fizzy American novel. . . Soulful, sophisticated and skeptical, full of great one-liners, it is one of those novels that blithely leap across the border between literary and popular fiction." --New York Times Book Review

"Like Eduardo Galeano, John Dos Passos and John Steinbeck, Cisneros writes along the borders where the novel and social history intersect. In this lovingly told and poetic novel, she uses the storytelling art to give the voiceless ones a voice, and to find the border to the past, imbuing the struggles of her family and her countries with the richness of myth." --Los Angeles Times

"A wonderful book . . . evoking life's absurdity and possibility, tragedy and transcendence. . . . Combines the thematic richness of the most ambitious literature with the delight in character and plot of the most engrossing page-turner." --Chicago Sun-Times

"Cisneros is a writer for all people. This is a novel of families, home life and finding yourself in the world's greater landscape." --USA Today

"A sprawling, exuberant hopscotch through a century of family history. . . . Cisneros seduces us with her knitted tales, great and small, and her message is all the more powerful for its shimmering clarity." --Time Out New York

"Cisneros has a great eye for detail, a good ear for dialogue and a marvelous sense of humor. . . Caramelo is a tour de force--rich in its use of language, breathtaking in scope." --St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Lovingly, passionately woven from dust and glory. . . A sweeping family history that somehow manages to interlace not just the Reyeses--those conjurers, enticers and troublemakers--but also all the rest of us, the good and bad together, the bitter and, of course, the sweet." --Miami Herald

"Sprawling, spirited. . . Vibrant and big-hearted." --Elle

"Cisneros's exuberant prose tickles the senses. . . A warm and generous story to wrap yourself up in." --St. Petersburg Times

"A sweet gift from the universe, a reminder of the ancient, deep, noble, and sad sources of the human heart. . . sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes transcendent." -San Antonio Express

"Cisneros is a virtuoso. . . [Caramelo] is rich in character and action, people and passions." --Houston Chronicle

"Remarkable. . . . Caramelo is a book to read slowly and savor and if you can find a listener, to read out loud." --Santa Fe New Mexican

"Cisneros is such an imaginative storyteller. . . Caramelo engages in a kind of playfulness that is utterly bewitching." --Entertainment Weekly

"Spellbinding. . . A richly satisfying novel." --People

"There should be a brand-new language to describe the ways in which [Cisneros] has imbued the ancient art of story-telling with her trademark organization, characterization, evocation of time and place, portrayal of a particular culture, and visionary wisdom. . .You must read this book for yourself, two or three times." --The Women's Review of Books

"Cisneros is a wonderful cultural translator, writing English dialogue so saturated with Mexican-Spanish idioms and constructions that you feel like you've been magically empowered to eavesdrop in another language." --The Oregonian

About the Author

Sandra Cisneros es una poeta, cuentista, novelista y ensayista cuyo trabajo explora las vidas de la clase obrera. Sus numerosos premios incluyen becas NEA tanto en poesía como en ficción, la Medalla de las Artes de Texas, la beca MacArthur, varios doctorados honorarios y premios nacionales e internacionales como el Fifth Star Award de Chicago, el PEN Center USA Literary Award y la Medalla Nacional de las Artes que el presidente Obama le otorgó en 2016. También obtuvo la beca Art of Change de la Fundación Ford y fue reconocida entre la lista The Frederick Douglass 200. En 2018, recibió el premio de literatura internacional PEN/Nabokov.

Su obra clásica, La casa en Mango Street, ha vendido más de seis millones de ejemplares, ha sido traducida a más de veinte idiomas y es lectura obligatoria en escuelas primarias, secundarias y universidades en todo el país.

Además de su obra literaria Cisneros ha fomentado las carreras de muchos escritores aspirantes y emergentes a través de sus dos organizaciones sin fines de lucro: la Fundación Macondo y la Fundación Alfredo Cisneros del Moral. También es la organizadora de Los MacArturos, el grupo de becarios latinos de la beca MacArthur que son activistas en sus comunidades. Sus trabajos literarios se conservan en Texas en las Wittliff Collections y en Texas State University.

Sandra Cisneros es ciudadana de los Estados Unidos y de México, y vive de su trabajo como escritora. Actualmente vive en San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.