Ruth Behar-ethnographer, essayist, poet, and filmmaker-is professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellows Award and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, Behar is the author of several books, including The Vulnerable Observer. She lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
A stunning critique and reversal of the received image of the
passive and humble Mexican Indian woman. . . . Engrossing reading
at the hands of a skillful interpreter. --The New York Times Book
Review
"A brave and unusual work. . . . A fascinating portrait of two very
different women and their intertwined struggle for identity." --The
Boston Globe
"A demanding and intensely satisfying read." --Hispanic
Magazine
"Engaging and insightful. . . . [Translated Woman] takes readers
deep into a cross-cultural encounter. . . . A valuable and subtle
book."--Choice
A stunning critique and reversal of the received image of the
passive and humble Mexican Indian woman. . . . Engrossing reading
at the hands of a skillful interpreter. --The New York Times
Book Review
"A brave and unusual work. . . . A fascinating portrait of two very
different women and their intertwined struggle for identity."
--The Boston Globe
"A demanding and intensely satisfying read." --Hispanic
Magazine
"Engaging and insightful. . . . [Translated Woman] takes
readers deep into a cross-cultural encounter. . . . A valuable and
subtle book."--Choice
In 1985 Behar, a feminist anthropologist working in Mexico, befriended street peddler Esperanza Hernandez, an Indian rumored to be a witch--townspeople claimed she used black magic to blind her ex-husband after he had regularly battered her and then left her for his mistress. In Behar's novelistic telling of Esperanza's life story, we meet a macha woman whose arrogance alienated her own mother, and whom Behar implausibly casts as a feminist heroine. Esperanza, who found redemption in a spiritist cult built around Pancho Villa, blames her pent-up rage for the deaths in infancy of the first six of her 12 children. She beat up her husband's lover and threw one of her sons out of the household; she also beat a daughter for refusing to support her and disowned another son for having what she considered an incestuous affair with his uncle's ex-mistress. Behar, who teaches at the University of Michigan, strains to find parallels between her own experience as a Cuban immigrant and that of her bellicose subject. Photos. (Feb.)
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