Erzulie's Skirt
"There isn't separation between the spiritual and material worlds."
reading
|
Ana-Maurine Lara first heard the stories on TV. Folks were setting out in small, wooden yolas from the Dominican Republic, headed for Puerto Rico. The poet says fictional characters popped right out, inspiring her debut novel. Erzulie's Skirt is told from the perspective of three Dominican women, each of whom faces challenges of love and tragedy. "There isn't separation between the spiritual and material worlds," Lara says of Dominican culture. "People speak and move with an awareness of the spiritual." The reader travels with these women from sugar cane plantations and poor Santo Domingo neighborhoods to Puerto Rico, all the way wrapped up in an ancestral language of ritual and memory. "I worked from a desire to honor the characters," says Lara, "but also to inform the world that these lives are worth hearing about."
Ana-Maurine Lara, Tue., Feb. 13, 7 p.m., free, Big Blue Marble Books, 551 Carpenter Lane, 215-844-1870, www.bigbluemarblebooks.com.
Also In This Week's Arts Section
Comments
Be the first to comment on this article.