In the Name of Salome

by Julia Alvarez

Book Overview

From the beloved author of How the Garc?a Girls Lost Their Accents and In the Time of Butterflies, an epic and intimate novel about two generations of women and the personal impact of history. It the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1565122763
• ISBN13: 9781565122765
• Release Date: June 2000
• Publisher: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
• Length: 357 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.9" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

WOW...

This book is wonderful...wow. I was immediately drawn to it since i knew that Julia Alvarez wrote it but once i started reading i fell in a trance. I sat and read it from finish to end without stopping. The way Julia picked each word and made it rhyme with the flow of the story was simply beautiful. I loved this book so much that it is my favorite book. I have read it at least 5 times both in English and Spanish and each time I am deeply moved with it. The book is about two women, mother and daughter. Each chapter changes from the mothers perspective when she was alive and the daughters perspective now that she is trying to bring out the bits of her mom that are in her. The whole book is simply remarkable! What can be more beautiful than a daughter struggling to be the Woman her mother was.

The best of the best

A truly amazing book, one of the best I've read in a long time. The way the past and present are combined so perfectly makes for a great story I couldn't put down. Buy it. It's worth it.

Excelente!!!!

No sabía que Julia Alvarez había escrito este libro hasta que me encontré con él en la Feria de Libro que recién finalizó aquí en la República Dominicana. Pensé en un inicio que sería una biografía más, sólo con "nació, fue poeta nacional y murió", sin embargo, al leer el resumen del libro y al pasar unas paginas me percaté que no era así, debo admitir que me impresionaron las primeras 5 líneas del 1er. capítulo. Compré el libro sin saber que los cápítulos interactuaban uno con el otro de manera tal que logran que el mismo sea todavía más fascinante. Me encantó leer la vida de Salomé Ureña según iba creciendo y luego ver la vida de Camila, su hija, desde su vejez hasta su niñez. Fue sencillamente EXITANTE!!!! no podía dejar de leer, terminaba un capítulo y no podía esperar para empezar el otro.Me sorprendieron muchos detalles de la vida de Salomé que desconocía aún siendo dominicana, pero más grato fue conocer la vida de Camila de la cual no sabía nada. (Aún cuando sé que hay aspectos de la vida de ambas que son producto de la imaginación de la autora).Ahora bien, recomiendo que antes de leer "En el nombre de Salomé" adquieran los poemas de Salomé Ureña, para así leer cada uno de ellos según son mencionados en el libro y así entender mucho más esta magnífica obra y la grandiosa vida de esta poeta.

One of her best!!!!!

I have read almost all of Julia Alvarez's works and found this one to be best!! I think she is brilliant in interweaving fiction and history. In Salome, she not only weaves fiction and history, but she also transcends time by moving back and forth between Salome's life and Camila's. Through this work of fiction you can truly appreciate one country's fight for independence.

A deeply imaginative novel about the poet Salome Urena

In recent years, literary authors and publishing houses have published dozens of fictionalized accounts of historical figures, with Joyce Carol Oates' BLONDE (Marilyn Monroe) and Russell Banks' CLOUDSPLITTER (John Brown) being prime examples of this genre. Because I'm tiring of such fiction, I never would have bought IN THE NAME OF SALOME if I had known Alvarez had joined this literary trend - and I would have missed out on a fabulous book as a result. Yes, this may not be Alvarez's best work, but the literary standards and emotional impact are still higher than most novels published today. This deeply imaginative portrait of the Dominican poet Salome Urena and her daughter Camila captures the people behind the revolutions in the Dominican Republic and Cuba without idealizing them, without relegating them to mouths spouting political dogma. As Salome says to her young husband when he chides her for writing a non-revolutionary poem, "I am a woman as well as a poet." This is exactly what Alvarez accomplishes: an adept melding of the public and private sides of her characters to give her book real heart. This novel spans over a hundred years, from the 1850's (the beginning of Salome's story) to the 1970's (the end of Camila's story.) Because the two stories are interspersed and are not told chronologically, the time and place can sometimes be confusing despite the chapter headings meant to give the reader his bearings. Don't let this frustrate you; the story is well worth this flaw. My advice is just to give yourself up to Alvarez's skill and let her take you where she wants.I think most of Alvarez's fans will not be disappointed, and I believe she will gain a few more with this novel, perhaps enticing these newcomers to read her earlier work.