Beyond the Border: A New Age in Latin American Women's Fiction

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Summary: Beyond the Border
Review: Beyond the Border, a collection of short stories by number of Latin American women authors, is an excellent source of hints to the culture of Latin America. I was very fortunate to read a number of short stories from this book for my Women's Culture from Latin America class at ISU in Normal, IL. After some time of study of Latin America's culture, I was able to get more meaning out of what I read. For example, the short story Mercedes-Benz 220SL, by Rosario Ferre, tells the story that teaches us about the impact of patriarchy and materialism on the family. Ferre uses punctuation, narriation, reoccurring themes, and imagery to paint a picture of the role of men and women in Latin America. Another short story, The Wedding, by Lucia Fox, takes the reader through the thoughts of a friend of the bride, who doesn't seem to be a clueless as everyone else. She points out how her friends fall blindly into typical female roles found in Latin American culture. In this story, Fox uses flashbacks and imagery to leave a lot of room for interpretation. The reader is forced to use their creativity to create their own interpretation. These two stories are just examples of the powerful stories found in the book. I highly recomend Beyond the Border to those both fammiliar and umfammiliar with Latin American culture.

Rating:
Summary: Beyond the Border
Review: I am a student at Illinois State University in Normal, IL. We were required to read a few of the short stories that make up the novel Beyond the Border edited by Nora Erro-Peralta and Caridad Silva. This novel made up of series of short stories by women writers of Latin America. Beyond the Border was one of the chosen readings for our class because we are studying about the history of women and how things have changed for them in Latin America. Before each story, a brief bibliography is given of the author, which helps give insight as to where the writer is coming from. It is also helpful in the fact that it gives specific details about the culture that you are going to read about. This is helpful for those of us who may not know a lot about other cultures so we can see into other's lives. Each short story is a twisted web of events that all incorporates the lives of females in Latin America. Stories come to us from Peru, the Dominican Republic, and many other countries, all showing uniqueness in their individual stories. To read this book, you have to be open-minded and adopt a new way of reading books. Many of the stories have several stories found within them, and as a class, many had difficulty with complexity of the stories. Although I have yet to read all the stories found in Beyond the Border I feel that this is a book that I will hold onto.

Rating:
Summary: BEYOND
Review: This book has incredible stories that have hidden meaning in them. The stories are fun to read and very engaging. The stories are humorous if read just for leisure.On the other hand, for a serious literature student or person, the stories have a lot to offer when critically analysed. They talk about women and how they fit in the society. Overall, I think Beyond the Border is a great book and people should definately ready it.