Biblioteca Era

El coronel no tiene quien le escriba fue escrita por Gabriel García Márquez durante su estancia en París, adonde había llegado como corresponsal de prensa y con la secreta intención de estudiar cine, a mediados de los años cincuenta. El cierre del periódico para el que trabajaba le sumió en la pobreza, mientras redactaba en tres versiones distintas esta excepcional novela, que fue rechazada por varios editores antes de su publicación. Tras el barroquismo faulkneriano de La hojarasca , esta segunda novela supone un paso hacia la ascesis, hacia la economía expresiva, y el estilo del escritor se hace más puro y transparente. Se trata también de una historia de injusticia y violencia: un viejo coronel retirado va al puerto todos los viernes a esperar la llegada de la carta oficial que responda a la justa reclamación de sus derechos por los servicios prestados a la patria. Pero la patria permanece muda.

"Based on Josefina Borquez, a working-class woman whose difficult life spanned some of the seminal events in early-twentieth-century Mexican history, Poniatowska's Jesusa is a tough, coarse-mouthed, cantankerous character who pushes contradiction to its limits. Mystical yet practical, she faces the obstacles in her path with gritty determination. A native of Oaxaca, Jesusa loses her mother at a young age, and she lives with her father until one of his girlfriends stabs her. Moved to her godmother's house, where she serves as a maid, Jesusa is reunited with her father during the Mexican Revolution, and joins the cavalry unit in the army of General Jesus Carranza. She marries another solider, a chronic womanizer who systematically abuses and finally abandons her. After the Revolution, embittered by its failure to live up to its promises to the poor, Jesusa finds work in Mexico City, first as a domestic, then in a series of factories, and begins her long history of run-ins with the police." "Poniatowska documents a life of brutal deprivation, extraordinary hardship, and hardscrabble humor while providing a unique perspective on politics and the place of women in twentieth-century Mexico."--BOOK JACKET.

Lilus Kikus, was erroneously first labeled a children's book because it had a young girl as protagonist, it included illustrations, and the author was an unknown woman. Accompanying Lilus Kikus in this first American edition are four of Poniatowska's short stories with female protagonists, only one of which has been previously published in English.