Caribbean Books

Excelent translation. Like "Eagle or Sun", "A Draft or Shadows" is the best Paz's poetry. Without doubt, some of the best poems I have ever read. East and West, Water and Stone, White and Black... encounter each other... on the other side.

Octavio Paz, A Draft of Shadows (New Directions, 1979)

I am kicking myself for having had this book in my collection for long enough that I donýt remember buying it and not getting around to it until now. Paz is the most exciting poet Iýve run across since discovering the work of Ira Sadoff five years ago. His work, more than capably translated here by Eliot Weinberger (with a few translations from others thrown in for good measure), is a perfect blend of the art and craft of poetry. It is also the finest overtly political work I have read since Aime Cesaire last put pen to paper. Paz understands that if the poetry is good enough, the message of the poetry will come out on its own, something nine hundred ninety-nine out of every thousand political poets never grasp. Those who would dispute it need only read the title poem here and hold it up against the best works by inferior political poets. The difference is stunning, and obvious.

When Paz won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1990, the committee stated that his writing was characterized by ýsensuous intelligence and humanistic integrity.ý Indeed. This is poetry the way itýs meant to be. **** 1/2

Reviewed by Olivera Baumgartner-Jackson for Reader Views (6/08)

If you've ever cruised on one of the megaships, I bet you've occasionally caught a glimpse of a sleeker, much smaller ship that crossed your path somewhere, but you've never seen them in the same port as your megaship. I've often wondered who could possibly be using those luxurious-looking, very appealing smaller catamarans and yachts, since they seemed to be oh-so-expensive.

After reading "Dream Cruises" by Kim Kavin I wonder no more. Ms. Kavin wrote an all-encompassing guide to choosing, chartering and enjoying vacations on private yachts. Surprisingly enough, those vacations can be quite affordable, and she provided examples for budgets from $1,000 to $1,000,000. If you regularly cruise with several friends, a private yacht charter could be even more cost effective for you than a cruise ship vacation. And with all the research that went into Ms. Kavin's book, unpleasant surprises, unnecessary hassles and wrong decisions could and should well be avoided.

After I've gotten over the feelings of intense jealousy, stirred in me by reading about the absolutely fabulous cruise vacation Ms. Kavin has taken in the past (just kidding, just kidding... but they are enough to make you sigh wistfully for sure!), I delved deeper in the technicalities of chartering a yacht. Ms. Kavin provided all of the necessary information to make the decision process simple and streamlined. Starting with the basic explanations of yacht chartering and comparison of yachts vs. cruise ships, Ms. Kavin familiarized the reader with boat basics, types of boats and what one could expect on different boat types. An in-depth discussion of destinations, both the usual, classic ones and a nice sampling of the emerging, new ones, followed those basic chapters. Ms. Kavin did not neglect to include a detailed overview of the cost, both up-front and the additional as well as optional ones. The next half-a-dozen chapters dealt with all of the other cruising aspects, from whom to choose to be your boating party to how special requests and needs could and would be accommodated, how to decide on the right type of the charter for your, how to find a respectable broker and what exactly will you encounter once on board, down to the descriptions of the different types of staterooms or bedrooms as well as how a head looks on a yacht and where to find it.

If you are planning a cruise vacation and would like to depart a bit from the routine of the megaships, or if you are just curious about how other people live, "Dream Cruises" is an excellent book to familiarize you with the world of private yacht chartering. And there is no law against dreaming, is there?

Cruises have never been viewed as a luxury for the average earner - but they can be, thanks to "Dream Cruises: The Insider's Guide to Private Yacht Charter Vacations". Speaking of private cruises, free from the hustle and bustle of community cruises and all of their hassles, it speaks clearly on how to make these, as the book is titled, dream cruises a reality and a possibility on funds as low as a single grand and other options if you manage to have more money lying around. "Dream Cruises: The Insider's Guide to Private Yacht Charter Vacations" is highly recommended for community library collections dedicated to travel.

Sólo quiero dar unas palabras de grande aprecio para este trabajo fantástico de Jorge Edwards, gran escritor quién considero el más grande escritor chileno en vida, y a quién tengo el placer de conocer personalmente. Esta novela, muy fácil de leer, con prosa excelente y ritmo de gran suspance, nos trae de vuelta a la tensión de la guerra fría, entre la Alemania de Hönecker y el Chile de Pinochet. Para mí que en esa época ni había nacido es un cuento memorable. Se lo aconsejo a todos !

Sólo quiero dar unas palabras de grande aprecio para este trabajo fantástico de Jorge Edwards, gran escritor quién considero el más grande escritor chileno en vida, y a quién tengo el placer de conocer personalmente. Esta novela, muy fácil de leer, con prosa excelente y ritmo de gran suspance, nos trae de vuelta a la tensión de la guerra fría, entre la Alemania de Hönecker y el Chile de Pinochet. Para mí que en esa época ni había nacido es un cuento memorable. Se lo aconsejo a todos !

Una historia que se lee como se ve una buena película. Sus secciones de acción y reacción cautivan al lector, haciendo que acelere su lectura y no la quiera soltar hasta el final. Con esta novela, logramos identificarnos con los protagosnistas, héroes y villanos por igual; reírmos y llorar juntos; compartir sus logros y sentir por sus fracasos. Se desarrolla en el Chile cambiante post Pinochet, pero no cae en la postulación política. Es una excelente muestra de la nueva literatura latinoamericana, la que se aleja del ya trillado realismo mágico que tanto ha dado que hablar y leer durante las más recientes décadas. Es audaz, juvenil, sensual, renovadora, entretenida y diferente. Muy merecedora del Premio Planeta 2003.

Excelente propuesta para explorar el incipiente erotismo narrativo latinoamericano, además de una buena situación vivencial y anecdótica. Divertido, muy recomendable.

Get to know "Gabo" through his own words as he converses with his old friend Plinio. I found "El Olor de la Guayaba" beneficial in helping me understand the author's view of his own books, including the popular and Nobel Prize-winning "Cien Años de Soledad"/"One Hundred Years of Solitude." García Márquez explains how this novel is thoroughly based in Caribbean reality, not "magic." In addition, "El Olor de la Guayaba" provides valuable and interesting biographical and personal information, plus some great photos. García Márquez is a brilliant, witty, and humanistic soul, and this little book fully shows off his character.

Algo asi como una platica escrita entre Garcia Marquez y Plinio Apuleyo, sin faltar el colorido lenguaje y el ambiente confortante que se crea solo al tocar un libro de el

Si eres seguidor de el pues es muy recomndable leerlo ya que como buen inventa cuentos de una historia sale la otra y nos hace participe de ello!

This book is an absolute masterpiece. I started reading it a few years ago when I was a lot younger and got throwed back by the long sentences and immense vocabulary Carpentier uses. However, now that I am a little older and have more patience, I can say that this is one of the most impressive novels ever written in Spanish. This book deserves more than five stars.

Carpentier's Siglo de las luces (The century of light) is the novel that can truly be called the key representative of magic realism. In the story of three brothers wandering all around the world the author crammed every little detail of the wonders of the eighteen century America (and of some parts of Europe). Thus he gave a sweeping portrait of the atmosphere of the age of the Enlightenment (hence the title), how the elevated ideals gradually drowned into blood and destruction. Carpentier originally studied music theory and we can say that in this book he found the closest equivalent in prose to a Beethoven symphony. In his literary essays he also talked about the existence of the eternal baroque, which roughly means that during literary history there are always periods when the rules of content and form are subverted. The finest example to the existence of the baroque in the twentieth century is precisely not only because of the luxuriant action but because of its carefully planned, winding sentences. Because of its difficult syntax and vocabulary, the lengthy sentences crammed with every possible little detail of the described scene, this book is not an easy read, especially originally in Spanish. Partly because the story is not set in our time, reading this book can be compared to the reading of a great Baroque classic, it conveys a strange eternal feel, similar to watching a flamboyant gilded altar of a XVII century church.

I had to read this book for a class on Latin American Literature. I did not think I would enjoy it as much as I did. It is a historical novel and the depiction of class and social relations is very well done.

Me gusto mucho este libro. Las descripciones de las personas son muy reales y la historia te hace seguir leyendo. A mi me gusto como la Historia Mexicana se mezcla con unos personajes muy agresivos y expresionantes. El final es classico. Leelo!

This is an incredible book for anyone interested in the abolition of slavery.

Christopher Schmidt-Nowara has written an excellent book to understand the process that led to the abolition of slavery in the Spanish colonies in the Caribbean, taking into account the latest developments in Cuban, Puertorrican, and Spanish history. This is an important new viewpoint: to understand the nineteenth-century history of Cuba and Puerto Rico it's necessary to have a fine understanding of Spain's colonial policy and the socio-economic links that these two colonies established with the metropolis. I consider this book a major break through, a very important book for any person interested in the history of the Caribbean, Latin America and/or Spain.

Jan Carew, Professor Emeritus, University of Louisville - novelist, anti-colonial activist and thinker.

Carl Greenidge, in his meticulously-researched work, entitled, 'Empowering a Peasantry in a Caribbean context," follows in the tradition of Walter Rodney's "History of the Guyanese Working People." Greenidge brings into focus the land settlement schemes in Guyana between 1865 and 1985. One must bear in mind in looking at this seminal work, that the British controlled a world-wide empire and central to their manipulation of the 'divide and conquer' axiom, was the way in which land was distributed and controlled. For, along with the control of arable land went the control of irrigation systems. In short, the land 'empowered' those controlled it.

Greenidge has done the kind of detailed research that Rodney did not have time to do prior to his assassination and has, thus, opened new venues for meaningful academic studies. It is interesting that he uses quotes from novelists, like Janice Shinebourne and Pauline Melville, at the beginning of each of his chapters. This shows a certain prescience that some of the most profound insights into the history of the Caribbean and its people, can be found in novels and not in academic treatises.

It is to the credit of the University of the West Indies that they published this seminal work which provides us with new insights of the legacy of racial divisions that now plague the Guyanese body politic.

This book makes very interesting reading for expert and layperson alike. It is a study that portrays Guyana as a set of physical and political contrasts and contradictions - contrasts between the beauty of the land and of its rewards, between coast and hinterland and, contradictions between pronouncement and intent, between opportunities and their exploitation. Among the many interesting pictures found in the book is that of the beautiful, but little-known, Chinakuruk Falls on the Essequibo. The falls have the appearance of a chimera or mirage - a theme of the book!

Carl Greenidge worked as a research and teaching economist in the UK, Africa and Guyana prior to taking up the post for which he is better remembered in the Caribbean - Minister of Finance and Planning of Guyana in the 1980s. The style of the book reflects that varied background, especially in teaching, and makes for easy reading. He writes about land settlement schemes but does so through the lens of the wider political, economic and social developments over the last 120 years.

Land settlement schemes were initially established for Chinese emigrants but they primarily benefited East Indians. Their objectives have changed over time, which means that in time they affected other ethnic groups also. They touched, and were a contrast to, early the village settlements. Subsequently, they too spawned villages. Initially, they served the sugar plantocracy, then the rice barons and the managers of `Cooperative Socialism' in different ways with many, often hidden, consequences for the politics and social life of Guyana. The stated objective of these schemes has been to establish a peasantry but life beyond settlement has always been precarious and the economic stability of small farming has never been assured. The story of this sector and of the attempts at its modernisation is told against a historical background but ironically the lessons remain pertinent today.

So, although the book is about agricultural policy, its triggers and its consequences, it is of much wider interest. It is about Guyana, its policies and economics, its struggles and ethnic tensions as well as its prospects. The book is meticulously footnoted, draws on a wide range of primary, as well as secondary sources and, contains an extremely extensive bibliography on Guyana. The latter alone would be welcome to many students due to the paucity of current, well-researched material on Guyana.

Mr Greenidge draws on the works of a number of well-known Guyanese novelists, current and past - Melville, Shinebourne and Mettleholzer, for example - to illustrate his theme of contradictions and mirages and of the link between the physical and social. An extensive foreword has been provided by Dr Professor Cedric Grant, head of the School of Caribbean and Political Studies at Clarke University. Grant positions the book in the setting or context of the current political debate on Guyana and highlights the significant academic importance of this contribution to the debate on public policy as well as ethnicity in the Caribbean.

This is highly recommended reading and a worthwhile purchase for both the expert and the intelligent observer of Guyana and Caribbean affairs!!

14/6/2001.

The book is well written. It is balanced, and gives an insight into the deep love and commitment Dr. Eric Williams had for the people of the Caribbean, and especially citizens of Trinidad and Tobago. The book discloses in authentic detail, the struggle to reclaim Chaguramas from the United States of America, who had got if from the British in the second world war, ostensibly for defence of North America, South America, and the Caribbean. It is a treasure of history, showing the struggle of a former British colony reaching for its political and economic independence. The book is also well worth reading from a literary point of view.

Eric Williams was a complex and controversial giant who led a small Caribbean nation into independence. Professor Palmer attempts to understand him and his influence on the modern Caribbean by dissecting some of the major issues with which he dealt in the course of constructing his government. The result is a fascinating, well-researched study which should interest students of the Caribbean but also those interested in the problems of governance of small countries generally. He ends his book in 1970, though Williams continued as Prime Minister until his death in 1981; the years of plenty when high oil prices funded an economic boom are not covered, and would also make fascinating reading. However, while there is much more to say about Williams' tenure, what Palmer does cover can be taken on its own merits.

Just one quibble: the author's arithmetic in the paragraph beginning at the bottom of page 228 doesn't add up, making his conclusions unintelligible; I trust this is the result of typographical error??