The Angel of Galilea

By Laura Restrepo

Book Overview

Laura Restrepo's prize-winningThe Angel of Galilea, newly translated into English, is a sublimely original, utterly contemporary story of love, faith, poverty, and mystery. Mona, a Colombian journalist once idealistic and determined to better the world, has been reduced to recounting the vapid pronouncements of newly crowned beauty queens for the tabloid journal that employs her. When her editor sends her to investigate reported sightings of an angel in a barrio on the outskirts of Bogot?, it's just another day's work. The angel craze has arrived late from America, and true to Colombian fashion she will now be expected to "warm up another topic already cold in the U.S." ???????? When she arrives in the flooded poorest-of-the-poor barrio of Galilea, she finds the residents in passionate conflict over a strange but beautiful young man. Magnificent, overwhelming, enigmatic, and possessing an undeniable sexual magnetism, he is revered by some as an angel and denounced by others, including the local priest, as an infernal impostor. Mona reads the story of this "angel without a name" in tattered journals transcribed by his mother and communes silently with him in the moonlight, falling deeply, passionately in love with him. Risking all, she commits herself to saving him from the forces that would destroy him. This silent, powerful angel, left out of the official heavenly host, personifies for the outcast, impoverished residents of Galilea their faith and hope. For Mona he is the avatar of a mystery she abandoned in childhood and, in a single, passionate, intimate embrace, fulfills both her desire to love completely and her longing to believe. The Angel of Galileahas been awarded the Sor Juana In?s de la Cruz Prize in Mexico and the Prix France Culture in France.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0609603264
• ISBN13: 9780609603260
• Release Date: September 1998
• Publisher: Crown
• Length: 193 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 0.8" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

fun to reead

I could not put this book down either. I was intrigued from the beginning about the nature of the "angel". I enjoyed reading it and I liked Laura Restrepo's writing style.

Dulce Compania

Once I got into the book, I had trouble putting it down. The author gives a new twist to angels interacting with humans.

El mejor libro que he leído

Este libro me agarró como ningún otro. Me lo tuve que devorar, porque no podía dejarlo de lado. Lo disfruté, me reí... me apasionó.Lo recomiendo mucho y sólo estoy esperando conseguir más libros de esta autora que tiene un manejo ríquiso del lenguaje.Bellísimo!

The Angel of Galilea es una dulce compañía

The Angel of Galilea se llama, en español, Dulce Compañía. Es una novela irreverente, juguetona, esperanzadora. El amor de la reportera por el ángel, más terrestre que otra cosa, más colombiano que étereo, es una delicada metáfora de la forma cómo la gente de Colombia se relaciona con su cruda realidad. Vale la pena leerlo!

You MUST read this.

I must say that this is an excellent book, when you start it you almost can stop until the end of it. It's really a good view for the latin american society, and I hope that you enjoy the book as much as I Did.