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Daughters of the Fifth Sun: A Collection of Latina Fiction and Poetry
Anthology of U.S. Latina Fiction and Poetry, now exclusively distributed by Wings Press of San Antonio, Texas.
Named by the New York Public Library as among the best 1996 Books for the Teen Age
284 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 11, 2020
I have very mixed feeling about this offering:
On one hand it it beautiful, poignant, honest, lyrical, & poetic: On the other the honesty is brutally truthful, real, raw, & gritty, not in the least pretty, romantic, or happy.
I want to shout: "BRAVO", but the wounds presented therein hurt and make me want to hide.
Here there is no privilege, no entitlement, no easy life: only hard-scrabble life lessons of those living in an impoverished & often misogynistic environment.
The authors: I've read several prior to this collection.... only in this collection I did not walk away with a sense of accomplishment or victory; I found no joy, no salvation nor any comfort.
I do not believe that this was written for the faint at heart nor those of us who have had an easy life. These are not "First World Problems" and therein lies the power of this collection.
I'll give this 5 Stars, only for the truth/honesty of its authors & their writings; not because I liked/loved it.
On one hand it it beautiful, poignant, honest, lyrical, & poetic: On the other the honesty is brutally truthful, real, raw, & gritty, not in the least pretty, romantic, or happy.
I want to shout: "BRAVO", but the wounds presented therein hurt and make me want to hide.
Here there is no privilege, no entitlement, no easy life: only hard-scrabble life lessons of those living in an impoverished & often misogynistic environment.
The authors: I've read several prior to this collection.... only in this collection I did not walk away with a sense of accomplishment or victory; I found no joy, no salvation nor any comfort.
I do not believe that this was written for the faint at heart nor those of us who have had an easy life. These are not "First World Problems" and therein lies the power of this collection.
I'll give this 5 Stars, only for the truth/honesty of its authors & their writings; not because I liked/loved it.
August 16, 2018
This book was definitely not my style. I'm sure for many other people, it would be a brilliant, colorful, and enjoyable read, but it was none of those things for me.
I picked this up because it was a collection of writings by Latinas--a large segment of the population of my community, country, and world that I am sadly unfamiliar with. The Spanish words and phrases sprinkled through the poems and stories were really fun; usually I could figure out what they were with my high school/college Spanish, so they didn't hinder my comprehension of the writings.
What did hinder my comprehension was the writing style in this book. Nearly everything included in this collection was so artistic I couldn't grasp what was happening. There were incredible phrasings and beautiful words, but that didn't make the stories or poems make any more sense as a whole. It was like the authors often wanted to use particular language, which is fine, but then they tried to make it fit within whatever frame they thought they'd established for the writing, and it just. didn't. work.
I found myself enjoying about three or four of the pieces in this book, but in general just counted the pages until the end of the book. This was disappointing because I really wanted to enjoy this, as my first anthology of Latina writers, but honestly most of this book fell flat. And I don't think it's really a cultural thing, I think it was more a style thing. One of the saddest parts of this is that I really enjoyed Sandra Cisneros' "The House on Mango Street," and still have my copy from college with my notes in the margins and scribbled-on papers tucked between the pages. But her story in this collection was by far the longest, and by far one of the most confusing, frustrating, and uninteresting pieces in the entire book.
But like I said, many people--such as my Contemporary Lit professor in college whose taste in writing was the antithesis of mine--may enjoy this book. I, simply, did not.
I picked this up because it was a collection of writings by Latinas--a large segment of the population of my community, country, and world that I am sadly unfamiliar with. The Spanish words and phrases sprinkled through the poems and stories were really fun; usually I could figure out what they were with my high school/college Spanish, so they didn't hinder my comprehension of the writings.
What did hinder my comprehension was the writing style in this book. Nearly everything included in this collection was so artistic I couldn't grasp what was happening. There were incredible phrasings and beautiful words, but that didn't make the stories or poems make any more sense as a whole. It was like the authors often wanted to use particular language, which is fine, but then they tried to make it fit within whatever frame they thought they'd established for the writing, and it just. didn't. work.
I found myself enjoying about three or four of the pieces in this book, but in general just counted the pages until the end of the book. This was disappointing because I really wanted to enjoy this, as my first anthology of Latina writers, but honestly most of this book fell flat. And I don't think it's really a cultural thing, I think it was more a style thing. One of the saddest parts of this is that I really enjoyed Sandra Cisneros' "The House on Mango Street," and still have my copy from college with my notes in the margins and scribbled-on papers tucked between the pages. But her story in this collection was by far the longest, and by far one of the most confusing, frustrating, and uninteresting pieces in the entire book.
But like I said, many people--such as my Contemporary Lit professor in college whose taste in writing was the antithesis of mine--may enjoy this book. I, simply, did not.
October 19, 2022
I rarely take notes on books, but sometimes I meet a book that be marked in my memory more than normal. I've got pages on this one!
My newest hyperfocus has been my family history. And the more I learn, the more I realize I don't know. Like finding an acorn, and trying to pull it from the ground only to find that the oak tree has grown the wrong way: the acorn cannot be understood because it's roots are buried and its depths unknown.
But then I get little nuggets of gold like this book. And I realize what has been stolen from my family. What the colonization and assimilation of my Native side made us lose. And what the dangers of being different made generations upon generations hide until it's not even known by their descendants... It's a mixture of joy and ash in the mouth.
But this book goes firmly on my recommendation list! And my "to buy physical copy" list.
10/10 recommend
To further convince you, I leave you with an excerpt:
"The voice of a woman? Does it belong to a particular time and place? Is it not something much more eternal? Like the womb? Is it a soft gentle fertility of instinct? The gesture is new, but the roots are the same. A woman sings of creation, and of recreation. The gesture is a song that blends the common experience to the consistency of a complex world... The texture of this particular literary expression is tradition. Here, a distinct point is made. What is tradition to a man differs in varying degrees from what is tradition to a woman..."
My newest hyperfocus has been my family history. And the more I learn, the more I realize I don't know. Like finding an acorn, and trying to pull it from the ground only to find that the oak tree has grown the wrong way: the acorn cannot be understood because it's roots are buried and its depths unknown.
But then I get little nuggets of gold like this book. And I realize what has been stolen from my family. What the colonization and assimilation of my Native side made us lose. And what the dangers of being different made generations upon generations hide until it's not even known by their descendants... It's a mixture of joy and ash in the mouth.
But this book goes firmly on my recommendation list! And my "to buy physical copy" list.
10/10 recommend
To further convince you, I leave you with an excerpt:
"The voice of a woman? Does it belong to a particular time and place? Is it not something much more eternal? Like the womb? Is it a soft gentle fertility of instinct? The gesture is new, but the roots are the same. A woman sings of creation, and of recreation. The gesture is a song that blends the common experience to the consistency of a complex world... The texture of this particular literary expression is tradition. Here, a distinct point is made. What is tradition to a man differs in varying degrees from what is tradition to a woman..."
April 11, 2020
I have very mixed feeling about this offering:
On one hand it it beautiful, poignant, honest, lyrical, & poetic: On the other the honesty is brutally truthful, real, raw, & gritty, not in the least pretty, romantic, or happy.
I want to shout: "BRAVO", but the wounds presented therein hurt and make me want to hide.
Here there is no privilege, no entitlement, no easy life: only hard-scrabble life lessons of those living in an impoverished & often misogynistic environment.
The authors: I've read several prior to this collection.... only in this collection I did not walk away with a sense of accomplishment or victory; I found no joy, no salvation nor any comfort.
I do not believe that this was written for the faint at heart nor those of us who have had an easy life. These are not "First World Problems" and therein lies the power of this collection.
I'll give this 5 Stars, only for the truth/honesty of its authors & their writings; not because I liked/loved it.
On one hand it it beautiful, poignant, honest, lyrical, & poetic: On the other the honesty is brutally truthful, real, raw, & gritty, not in the least pretty, romantic, or happy.
I want to shout: "BRAVO", but the wounds presented therein hurt and make me want to hide.
Here there is no privilege, no entitlement, no easy life: only hard-scrabble life lessons of those living in an impoverished & often misogynistic environment.
The authors: I've read several prior to this collection.... only in this collection I did not walk away with a sense of accomplishment or victory; I found no joy, no salvation nor any comfort.
I do not believe that this was written for the faint at heart nor those of us who have had an easy life. These are not "First World Problems" and therein lies the power of this collection.
I'll give this 5 Stars, only for the truth/honesty of its authors & their writings; not because I liked/loved it.
February 7, 2008
faves: ana castillo, ines martinez, carmen tafolla, judith ortiz-cofer. castillo's short story made me laugh out loud, which is a good thing.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews