Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
Categories
Fiction & Related items

THE TASTE OF SUGAR

Marisel Vera

Marisel Vera emerges as a major voice of contemporary fiction with a heart-wrenching novel set in Puerto Rico on the eve of the Spanish-American War.

It is 1898, and groups of starving Puerto Ricans, los hambrientos, roam the parched countryside and dusty towns begging for food. Under the yoke of Spanish oppression, the Caribbean island is forced to prepare to wage war with the United States. Up in the mountainous coffee region of Utuado, Vicente Vega and Valentina Sanchez labor to keep their small farm from the creditors.

When the Spanish-American War and the great San Ciriaco Hurricane of 1899 bring devastating upheaval, the young couple is lured, along with thousands of other puertorriquenos, to the sugar plantations of Hawaii --another US territory-- where they are confronted by the hollowness of America's promises of prosperity.

Writing in the tradition of great Latin American storytelling, Marisel Vera's The Taste of Sugar is an unforgettable novel of love and endurance, and a timeless portrait of the reasons we leave home.

Suatable for readers of Esmeralda Santiago, Cristina Garcia, Edwidge Danticat, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Min Jin Lee.

A proud Boricua, Marisel Vera is the author of If I Bring You Roses, and the two-time winner of Willow Review's fiction prize. She lives in Chicago and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Available products
Book Published 2020-06-16 by Liveright

Comments

THE TASTE OF SUGAR is a majestic work with the grand sweep of history and the intimacy of a compelling dream. Marisel Vera has written a compassionate, unforgettable, richly detailed novel about colonialism in all its guises, offering us little-known stories from the past that are essential to understanding the present.

Subtle yet arresting, The Taste of Sugar is a gorgeous feat of storytelling. Marisel Vera melds meticulous research with deep compassion and pure talent to fashion a novel that excavates the pain of history while drawing hope from the buried stories of our nation. This is historical fiction as its best, using the moral dilemmas of the past to decipher our present conflicts in order to light our way toward a more just future.

Vera follows the shifting fortunes of a Puerto Rican family after U.S. occupation in this intense, emotional saga.

The Taste of Sugar is on Entertainment Weekly's "Most Anticipated Books of 2020" list! Read more...

Tapping into her Puerto Rican heritage and conducting plenty of research, Vera (If I Bring You Roses, 2011) presents a heartfelt depiction of once-proud coffee plantation hacendados (owners) in very difficult times. In the years before the Spanish-American War of 1898, Valentina Sanchez is a hopeless romantic from Ponce when she marries Vicente Vega of rural Utuado, a good man who can only offer hard work on the plantation. Buckling down to establish a dignified life while so many other islanders are starving, they grapple with injustice and the invading U.S. military. Presaging recent Puerto Rican tragedies, their fragile family economy is finally destroyed after the devastating 1899 hurricane, San Ciriaco. In their desperation, the Vegas take the extreme measure of following the siren call of sugar-cane-plantation recruiters and migrate to Hawaii, where they face ruthless exploitation. Progressing chronologically, the omniscient narrator seamlessly folds in Spanish words and phrases as well as epistolary interludes between Valentina and her sister, Elena. Vera 's novel is historical fiction at its best, featuring engaging survivors from a forgotten past. Sara Martinez

Set in Puerto Rico on the eve of the Spanish American War, this remarkable historical novel is one of home, family bonds and the broken promises of the American Dream. This is grand, impassioned storytelling.

Vera takes the shards of history and creates a fully realized and compelling novel.

Vera (If I Bring You Roses) follows the shifting fortunes of a Puerto Rican family after U.S. occupation in this intense, emotional saga. In 1889, 17-year-old Valentina Sanchez, head full of fantasies of Paris trips and grand romance, marries handsome coffee farmer Vicente Vega despite her family's objections. She returns with him to his unwelcoming family in Utuado, where the vagaries of the coffee harvest delay their move from the isolated mountains. After three years, they move into a crudely built home, where happy times are overshadowed by the accidental death of their young daughter. When Vicente loses his farm in 1900 due to economic hardships following American occupation, the family leaves for Hawaii to work on sugar plantations. A series of tragedies and indignities ensuesthe couple's son drowns at sea on the way to the islands, and they're greeted in Hawaii by squalid living conditionsbefore Vega ends the book on a slightly hopeful, if unresolved note, as the family bonds with other Puerto Rican families in Hawaii. Vega pieces together the epic tale with acute moments of crushing pain and disillusion overcome by the strong characters' implacable resilience. The novel's deeply felt mixture of the characters' sorrow and joy offers a vibrant glimpse of the history of Puerto Ricans in Hawaii.

Vera's breakout novel is a sweeping, emotional tale.

Set in Puerto Rico on the eve of the Spanish American War, this remarkable historical novel is one of home, family bonds and the broken promises of the American Dream. This is grand, impassioned storytelling.

...haunting, mesmerizing, and heart-scorching - you will turn pages while holding your breath.

...capacious novel ... The book, yoking family crises to geopolitical ones, succeeds in creating characters who feel individuated rather than schematic....