Her investigative partner is photographer Francisco Leal, the son of impoverished Spanish Marxist émigrés. Together, they form an unlikely but inseparable team—and Francisco quickly falls in love with the fierce and loyal Irene. When an assignment leads them to a young girl whom locals believe to possess miraculous powers, they uncover an unspeakable crime perpetrated by an oppressive regime. Determined to reveal the truth in a nation overrun by terror and violence, each will risk everything to find justice—and, ultimately, to embrace the passion and fervor that binds them.Profoundly moving and ultimately uplifting, Of Love and Shadows is a tale of romance, bravery, and tragedy, set against the indelible backdrop of a country ruled with an iron fist—and peopled with those who dare to challenge it.

    Other titles by Pablo Neruda available from Consortium:The Book of Questions (Copper Canyon Press), 1-55659-041-5 PB • 1-55659-040-7 HCCeremonial Songs (Latin American Literary Review Press), 0-935480-80-3 PBNeruda at Isla Negra (White Pine Press), 1-877727-83-0 PBNeruda’s Garden (Latin American Literary Review Press), 0-935480-68-4 PBThe Sea and the Bells (Copper Canyon Press), 1-55659-019-9 PBThe Separate Rose (Copper Canyon Press), 0-914742-88-4 PBStill Another Day (Copper Canyon Press), 0-914742-77-9 PBStones of the Sky (Copper Canyon Press), 1-55659-007-5 PB • 1-55659-006-7 HCWinter Garden, (Copper Canyon Press), 0-914742-93-0 PB • 0-914742-99-X HCYellow Heart, (Copper Canyon Press), 1-55659-029-6 PB

    Angel Rama’s groundbreaking study—presented here in its first English translation—provides an overview of the power of written discourse in the historical formation of Latin American societies, and highlights the central role of cities in deploying and reproducing that power. To impose order on a vast New World empire, the Iberian monarchs created carefully planned cities where institutional and legal powers were administered through a specialized cadre of elite men called letrados; it is the urban nexus of lettered culture and state power that Rama calls “the lettered city.” Starting with the colonial period, Rama undertakes a historical analysis of the hegemonic influences of the written word. He explores the place of writing and urbanization in the imperial designs of the Iberian colonialists and views the city both as a rational order of signs representative of Enlightenment progress and as the site where the Old World is transformed—according to detailed written instructions—in the New. His analysis continues by recounting the social and political challenges faced by the letrados as their roles in society widened to include those of journalist, fiction writer, essayist, and political leader, and how those roles changed through the independence movements of the nineteenth century. The coming of the twentieth century, and especially the gradual emergence of a mass reading public, brought further challenges. Through a discussion of the currents and countercurrents in turn-of-the-century literary life, Rama shows how the city of letters was finally “revolutionized.”Already crucial in setting the terms for debate concerning the complex relationships among intellectuals, national formations, and the state, this elegantly written and translated work will be read by Latin American scholars in a wide range of disciplines, and by students and scholars in the fields of anthropology, cultural geography, and postcolonial studies.

    As the novel opens, the matriarch Eulalia has begun her final task--dying. Long, long ago she came to Brazil from Spain--a bride with her already formidable, iron-willed husband, Madruga. Inspired by Grandfather Xan, the young couple brought with them the passion for making memories into tales--told as sustenance, proof, and hallmark; told as protection against the killing rush of time. Now, as both Eulalia and her era near their end, that tradition achieves its most poignant flowering--in a burst of family lore, recrimination, and recollected dreams, as the clan, gathered at Eulalia's side, relives the past and vies for the future.

    Her wandering hero refuses to conform to the established order that descends into military terror and machismo.