Alma Guillermoprieto

#2

Alma Guillermoprieto--an award-winning journalist and arguably our most clear-eyed observer of Latin America--now turns her keen powers of observation onto her own, younger self. In this richly evocative chronicle, Guillermoprieto describes the remarkable, transforming journey she made as a twenty-year-old, when her love of dance--which had led her from her native Mexico to the New York dance studios of Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, and Twyla Tharp--took her to a job teaching poorly trained but ardent dance students in Cuba. At first unaffected by the revolutionary spirit and the adoration of Castro that pervaded the island, Guillermoprieto slowly fell under the spell of the idealism that buoyed the often destitute lives of the Cuban people. And as she opened herself to what became a complex, galvanizing revolutionary experience, she found, as well, the ideas and ideals that would shape her thinking for the rest of her life. Beautifully written and deeply felt, Dancing with Cuba is a revelatory account of the making of an impassioned political heart and mind.--Publisher description.

#3

"Poignant stories capturing the essence of everyday life for average Latin Americans. This New Yorker essayist and Mexican-born journalist perspicaciously covers topics from violence, inequality, and survival to the faithless politicians and the faithful perseverance with which people strive to believe. Beautifully written vignettes of life in Bogotá, Managua, Mexico City, Lima, Buenos Aires, and La Paz illuminate both constants and differences in the political cultures of Latin America"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 57.