Best of
Latin-American

2004

Between Parentheses: Essays, Articles, and Speeches, 1998-2003


Roberto Bolaño - 2004
    “Taken together,” as the editor Ignacio Echevarría remarks in his introduction, they provide “a personal cartography of the writer: the closest thing, among all his writings, to a kind of fragmented ‘autobiography.’” Bolaño’s career as a nonfiction writer began in 1998, the year he became famous overnight for The Savage Detectives; he was suddenly in demand for articles and speeches, and he took to this new vocation like a duck to water. Cantankerous, irreverent, and insufferably opinionated, Bolaño also could be tender (about his family and favorite places) as well as a fierce advocate for his heroes (Borges, Cortázar, Parra) and his favorite contemporaries, whose books he read assiduously and promoted generously. A demanding critic, he declares that in his “ideal literary kitchen there lives a warrior”: he argues for courage, and especially for bravery in the face of failure. Between Parentheses fully lives up to his own demands: “I ask for creativity from literary criticism, creativity at all levels.”

Opening Mexico: The Making of a Democracy


Julia Preston - 2004
    Told through the stories of Mexicans who helped make the transformation, the book gives new and gripping behind-the-scenes accounts of major episodes in Mexico's recent politics.Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party, led by presidents who ruled like Mesoamerican monarchs, came to be called "the perfect dictatorship." But a 1968 massacre of student protesters by government snipers ignited the desire for democratic change in a generation of Mexicans. Opening Mexico recounts the democratic revolution that unfolded over the following three decades. It portrays clean-vote crusaders, labor organizers, human rights monitors, investigative journalists, Indian guerrillas, and dissident political leaders, such as President Ernesto Zedillo-Mexico's Gorbachev. It traces the rise of Vicente Fox, who toppled the authoritarian system in a peaceful election in July 2000.Opening Mexcio dramatizes how Mexican politics works in smoke-filled rooms, and profiles many leaders of the country's elite. It is the best book to date about the modern history of the United States' southern neighbor-and is a tale rich in implications for the spread of democracy worldwide.

Secrets of Colombian Cooking


Patricia McCausland-Gallo - 2004
    The author travelled throughout these regions to collect the most authentic dishes. With over 175 recipes and a glossary of ingredients, cooks will become acquainted with many of Colombia's indienous foods, such as cilantro, tamarind, tree tomatoes, gooseberries and sweet and hot peppers.

Yoruba from Cuba: Selected Poems


Nicolás Guillén - 2004
    Presents a selection of poems, in both English and Spanish, that evoke the themes of race and the legacy of slavery in the United States and the Caribbean.

Tina Modotti & Edward Weston: The Mexico Years


Sarah M. Lowe - 2004
    The work Modotti and Weston made in the 1920s signals the beginning of a Modernist photographic aesthetic that left an indelible mark on the history of photography in Mexico.