Happiness

by Marjorie Agosín, Elizabeth Horan (Translator)

Overview

This is the first collection of stories by acclaimed poet Marjorie Agosín. In lyrical pieces more like poems-in-prose, Agosín celebrates both her own ethnic heritage and the universal human truths that demonstrate the myriad ways in which happiness is ultimately revealed to us.

“These pieces are like tiny jewels that reflect dazzlingly a million truths.”—Américas Magazine

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781877727344
Publisher:	White Pine Press
Publication date:	01/01/1995
Edition description:	1st ed
Pages:	238
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Marjorie Agosín (b. 1955) is a Chilean-American writer who has been honored by the United Nations for her work.

Editorial Reviews

In these fantastical stories Chilean-born poet Agosin ( Sargasso ) weaves strange and beautiful images of hair, water, food and darkness. However, deft writing alone cannot anchor and balance this frustrating collection; the brevity of the pieces makes any sort of richer and fuller understanding a difficult task. The protagonists of the 44 stories are all women; through sheer numbers the author does capture certain rhythms and patterns of female life. But an explicit connection between these heroines and their lives is needed and never made, as in the story of a woman with an ``undulating mane'' who develops a bizarre obsession with hair. A number of the stories dealing with childhood and memory are more successful. In one a woman recalls her nanny of long ago, who told stories by the fireside and wrote mysterious letters that she never mailed; the tale's direct emotions are more captivating than the most fanciful imagery. In another story Agosin draws on her own Eastern European Jewish background to describe a young girl's fascination with the forbidden Mass and Eucharist and the fear and confusion this causes in her family. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In this compelling collection of 44 stories, first published in Chile in 1991, Agosin (Spanish, Wellesley Coll.) explores such themes as relationships and class conflicts among Latin American women, being Jewish within a predominantly Catholic culture, political oppression, and childhood. The stories, often as short as a page and a half, are powerful and intuitive. The author, a prolific poet and fiction writer in both Spanish and English, has also edited two excellent anthologies of short stories by Latin American women, Landscapes of a New Land ( LJ 12/89) and Secret Weavers ( LJ 1/92), as well as a collection of essays on torture as it affects women and children ( Surviving Beyond Fear , White Pine Pr., 1993). Highly recommended for all libraries with Latin American and/or women's literature collections.-- Mary Margaret Benson, Linfield Coll. Lib., McMinnville, Ore.

Library Journal