8/8/2023 0 Comments Papyrus author free![]() Anita’s uncle has disappeared, there are strange sightings in an abandoned house next door, and she makes friends with the son of an American Ambassador – Sam Washburn. ![]() In Before We Were Free, the author imagines a girl of twelve years old who finds herself in a similar situation to the author. One of the great things about Before We Were Free is that it is based on a personal account of the author, who was born in the US, and then was taken to live in the Dominican Republic, before fleeing from there at the age of ten since her father participated in “a failed plot to overthrow a dictator”. The book is short and easy to read, even though it does lose some of its compelling force in the middle and no longer provides any fresh insights by the end. Alvarez’s book strikes a delicate balance between the joys and sorrows of late childhood, including first love and early teenage insecurities, and the external tragedy and the experience of the world falling apart because of random acts of violence. Anita de la Torre may be only twelve but she already knows what it is like to have her family members suddenly disappear and a secret police raiding her home. Julia Alvarez’s Before We Were Free is a moving coming-of-age account of a young girl who grows up in the Dominican Republic under the dictatorship in the late 1950s. Here is my first review of February, and I am continuing with a book by Julia Alvarez for my Latin America Reading Challenge. January has been a month of (intense) new beginnings for me (including yoga), and I finally have more time to move forward with my blog posts. elegant and richly digressive.First, I would like to say to my followers that the reason I have not been so active on my blog recently is because I have taken a number of projects simultaneously over the past month, including taken more work assignments, started learning Japanese officially, started writing two fiction books (one of which will be a historical fiction/murder mystery set in France), and also started learning the piano. In this sweeping tour of the history of books, the wonder of the ancient world comes alive and along the way we discover the singular power of the written word.Īn enthralling journey through the history of books and libraries in the ancient world and those who have helped preserve their rich literary traditions A literary phenomenon. Vallejo takes us to mountainous landscapes and the roaring sea, to the capitals where culture flourished and the furthest reaches where knowledge found refuge in chaotic times. Weaved throughout are fascinating stories about the spies, scribes, illuminators, librarians, booksellers, authors, and statesmen whose rich and sometimes complicated engagement with the written word bears remarkable similarities to the world today: Aristophanes and the censorship of the humourists, Sappho and the empowerment of women's voices, Seneca and the problem of a post-truth world. Journeying along the battlefields of Alexander the Great, beneath the eruptions of Mount Vesuvius, at Cleopatra's palaces and the scene of Hypatia's murder, award-winning author Irene Vallejo chronicles the excitement of literary culture in the ancient world, and the heroic efforts that ensured this impressive tradition would continue. Long before books were mass produced, those made of reeds from along the Nile were worth fighting and dying for. 'Packed with fascinating insights.' - The i Review the story she tells is impressively rip-roaring' - Daily Telegraph 'A mindboggling history of the earliest books. 'Vallejo enlivens history with imagination and personal anecdote' - Observer 'I maginative, lively and contemporary.masterly. 'A literary phenomenon.' - Times Literary Supplement She is a regular columnist for El PaÃs, and is the author of two children's books, two novels, and three collections of essays, articles, and short fiction. Papyrus was awarded the National Essay Prize, the Critical Eye Prize for Narrative and the Bookstore Recommendation Award, and will be published in more than forty countries. Irene Vallejo earned her European Doctorate from the Universities of Zaragoza and Florence.
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