Azucar! LA Biografia De Celia Cruz

by Eduardo Marceles

Presents an examination of the life and work of the Cuban salsa singer Celia Cruz.

Genres: Music, Biography

Hardcover

First published April 1, 2004

Reviews

[Carmen]

2019 Popsugar Reading Challenge en Español: 19. Un libro con la palabra “pop”, “azúcar” o “reto”
Genre Bingo - 2019 Reading Challenge: B4 Biography

Repaso de la vida y obra de la admirable Celia Cruz, un tanto descafeinado para mi gusto, le sobra azúcar y le falta sazón, pero bueno, me ha resultado una lectura entretenida e ilustradora.
He aprendido un montón de cosas interesantes sobre la santería, la Cuba donde creció Celia, las distintas orquestas en las que colaboró (alguna formada exclusivamente por mujeres bajo la batuta de Isolina Carrillo), y los diferentes ritmos caribeños de los que Celia Cruz fue, sin duda, la Reina con mayúsculas, demostrando que con tesón, talento y saber hacer, y a pesar de ser mujer y negra, en una época donde el machismo imperante se lo ponía realmente difícil, se puede alcanzar el firmanento y brillar con luz propia.

[Laura]

No index, no citations (even for long quotations), and chaotic organization. The book ping-pongs back and forth through her life, listing who she knew and the music she performed, with multiple chapters about her funeral mysteriously interspersed among the rest. Some points of fact contradict one another or are just wrong. It just did not cohere, nor did it win my trust. Very disappointing as a biography.

[Willi Sanchez]

Deseo leerlo

[Rosalind]

More of a collection of facts about Celia's life than a cohesive story. It was pretty dry but I at least appreciated learning more details about her storied career.

[Isabelle]

An interesting read about Celia's life. The only drawback was the writing style; it had a direct style as though written for a newspaper but then became verbose...as if the writer was trying to show off his writing skills. And about halfway through the book, the author began including parts of her lyrics (with translations) when discussing any number of songs from her repertoire which didn't seem necessary to me. The book was originally written in Spanish, which could explain the somewhat flowery language but some of the translation was a little off.

[Sistermagpie]

This biography of Celia Cruz is a lot gusher than her own--the author often refers to her as things like "the diva" rather than her name, which is a little uncomfortable. He also jumps around a lot in time and gives lots of information on other people with whom she worked. On one hand, that's a good thing since those people are all very accomplished themselves, but it's hard to keep track of if you're going into it like me without knowing a lot about this genre of music to start.

[Barbara]

The book was good, it gave good insight on her life. However, I didn't like the author's style of writing. The book didn't go chronologically it went life death life death life death. But, I like Celia so I read the whole thing.