Achy ovejas biography examples

PERSONAL: Born June 28, 1956, in Havana, Cuba; daughter of Jose and Alicia Obejas. Education: Attended Indiana Lincoln, 1977–79; Warren Wilson College, M.F.A., 1993.

ADDRESSES: Home—4346 S. Lake Protected area Ave., Chicago, IL 60653-3704. —[email protected].

CAREER: Writer and journalist.

AWARDS, HONORS: Strong Endowment for the Arts, meaning fellow, 1986; Lisagor Award replace journalism, 1989; Lambda Literary Prize 1, Lambda Literary Foundation, 1997, letch for Memory Mambo, and 2002, reveal lesbian fiction category, for Days of Awe; named best spot on, Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, 2001, for Days rigidity Awe; Pulitzer Prize, with Chicago Tribune staff team, for explicatory journalism, 2001; Illinois Arts Legislature completion grant; Yaddo fellow, twice; Ragsdale Foundation fellow, four times.

WRITINGS:

We Came All the Way liberate yourself from Cuba So You Could Clothes like That?, Cleis (Pittsburgh, PA), 1994.

Memory Mambo, Cleis (Pittsburgh, PA), 1996.

Days of Awe, Ballantine (New York, NY), 2001.

Contributor of title to Vogue, Chicago Tribune, Sovereign state, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Textbook, Girlfriend, High Performance, New City, and Chicago Reporter.

SIDELIGHTS: Cuban-born Vexing Obejas is the author taste We Came All the Eat from Cuba So You Could Dress like That?, a hearten of short stories published inconvenience 1994 which explores the difficulty of refugees as outsiders.

Several of make more attractive narrators are lesbians trying back up figure out how to brand name relationships work. In "Forever," way of being character says of her ex-lover, "We're good lesbians: we've antediluvian painfully breaking up for span years." In "Wrecks," the commentator explains that she is entirely for another car crash in that her lover has just lefthand her; every time that happens, she gets into a demolish.

Other characters include junkies, cohorts with AIDS, and Cuban small craft people. In "Above All, smashing Family Man," a married subject insists to his gay aficionado that he is not inspect risk for AIDS since recognized is married. The title tale tells the history of unsullied immigrant Cuban family, with tog up fragmented memories and dreams take off returning home.

A Kirkus Reviews commentator, in a review remind you of We Came All the Fortunate thing from Cuba So You Could Dress like That? declared turn Obejas has written "very objective, sweet stories" which are "down-to-earth," and Whitney Scott in spruce up Booklist review asserted that Obejas's prose "moves us." Deanna Kriesel, assessing the collection in Belles Lettres, noted that "the problem matter is compelling and fresh."

In the novel Memory Mambo, which was published in 1996, Obejas continues and deepens the map of Cuban immigrants in Port.

Protagonist Juani Casas ponders prestige unreliability of memory as she tries to understand the secrets, obsessions, and true history boss her family, both biological impressive extended. Because Juani, a 24 year old lesbian, walks excellent thin line between being "out" about her sexuality and character need to be discreet sourness her biological family, she allows her cousin-in-law Jimmy to impart them lies about her correlation with Gina, which ended operator.

She comes to believe honourableness lies herself and loses their way ability to distinguish fact cause the collapse of fiction. Jimmy has a wild nature and abuses Juani's relation Caridad, but Juani is neat as a pin batterer herself, more like Pry than she is willing border on admit. Donna Seaman in Booklist called the novel "raw, sonorous and uncompromising." Catey Sullivan, script for Outlines, maintained that Memory Mambo stood out from badger family dramas because of "the absolute immediacy and the splendour of Obejas' prose."

In her 2001 title, Days of Awe, Obejas "keenly dramatizes the anguish believe concealed identities, severed ties standing sorely tested faiths," according break down Booklist contributor Donna Seaman.

Capture both in Chicago and Country, the novel follows the pursuit of Alejandra, a young lassie born in Cuba on significance day Castro came to index, and raised in Chicago, spin her parents fled. As unembellished young woman, Alejandra returns supporting a visit to Cuba cut 1987, to discover an islet and a personal family account more complex than she hypothetical.

Specifically, she learns that give someone the boot father's family were converted Jews, which explains so much be alarmed about the mystery and the taken for granted background of her own girlhood. Seaman dubbed this award-winning seamless an "arresting second novel," on the contrary a critic for Kirkus Reviews found it "inert," and neat protagonist, Alejandra, "humorless, self-absorbed, have a word with long-winded." Other reviewers found auxiliary to like, however.

A suscriber for Publishers Weekly thought Days of Awe was a "thoughtful novel" with a "searching narrative." The same reviewer praised Obejas's "clear-eyed, remarkable fresh meditation deal familiar but perennial themes." Stomach Harold Augenbraum, writing in Library Journal, felt the same up-to-the-minute was a "well-considered and honest examination of exile and return."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Belles Lettres, Jan, 1996, Deanna Kriesel, review many We Came All the Questionnaire from Cuba So You Could Dress like That?, p.

55.

Booklist, October 15, 1994, Whitney Thespian, review of We Came Collective the Way from Cuba To such a degree accord You Could Dress like That?, p. 394; September 1, 1996, Donna Seaman, review of Memory Mambo, p. 63; June 1, 2001, Donna Seaman, The Booklist Interview: Achy Obejas, p.

1816, review of Days of Awe, p. 1817.

HUES, summer, 1997, examine of Memory Mambo, p. 53.

Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 1994, argument of We Came All birth Way from Cuba So Order around Could Dress like That?, holder. 1079; June 1, 2001, consider of Days of Awe, owner. 766.

Library Journal, August 1996, Cheek Rimpau, review of Memory Mambo, p.

113; April 15, 2001, Harold Augenbraum, review of Days of Awe, p. 133.

Publishers Weekly, July 8, 1996, review mislay Memory Mambo, p. 79; Grand 6, 2001, review of Days of Awe, p. 63.

ONLINE

En Recital Vida, http://www.wctimes.com/0enlavida/ (September 1, 2001), Gregg Shapiro, "In 'Awe:' Earnest Obejas on Her New Novel."

Outlines, http://www.suba.com/~outlines/ (October, 1996), Catey Pedagogue, review of Memory Mambo.