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Overview
La vida de Ann Bonny y de Mary Read estaba predestinada a ser la de dos mujeres sumisas en un mundo dominado por los hombres. Pero su ansia de libertad y su deseo de vivir nuevas experiencias les enseñó cómo sobrevivir en ambientes exclusivamente masculinos y las arrojó a participar en la aventura más fascinante de su época: Bonny y Read son las dos piratas más astutas que han conocido las aguas del Caribe.Ganadora del Premio de Novela Fernando Lara 2003.
Synopsis
La vida de Ann Bonny y de Mary Read estaba predestinada a ser la de dos mujeres sumisas en un mundo dominado por los hombres. Pero su ansia de libertad y su deseo de vivir nuevas experiencias les enseñó cómo sobrevivir en ambientes exclusivamente masculinos y las arrojó a participar en la aventura más fascinante de su época: Bonny y Read son las dos piratas más astutas que han conocido las aguas del Caribe.Editorials
Criticas
[This book is currently under rights negotiations. Only a few thousand copies of this Planeta edition are now available for sale in the United States.—Ed.] A prolific, award-winning Cuban novelist in exile in France, Vald s is known for her odes to pre-Castro Havana and her condemnation of the regime in novels like La nada cotidiana (The Daily Nothing, Emec , 1996) and Querido primer novio (Dear First Love, Planeta, 1999). In this latest effort, a historical novel about two legendary women pirates of the Caribbean, Vald s turns away from her signature Cuban themes but continues to explore the hopes, frustrations, and desires of her women protagonists. Disguised as men, Anne Bonny and Mary Read partake and eventually triumph in the male-dominated pirate world. The bastard daughter of an Irish nobleman, Anne escapes her family's South Carolina estate after dismembering her nanny, and disguises herself as a man to test her luck on the ocean. Mary, also born out of wedlock, is raised as a boy so that her mother can claim her dead brother's inheritance, and later joins the British army and a pirate ship. In alternate chapters, Vald s narrates the girls' captivating adventures-from Anne's fights against the fiercest pirates in the Caribbean to Mary's near-death experience as a soldier in Flandes-until their destinies finally cross. As in her past novels, Valdes delights readers with steamy erotic scenes that in most cases carry a homosexual undertone, as the protagonists' lovers think they're men. But at times, this sexual ambiguity seems too contrived; the various lovers have no problem when they learn Mary's and Anne's true identities, and neither do the two women when they kiss anddiscover they're both disguised women living on a pirate ship. Moreover, a three-way relationship between the two women and Calico Jack, one of the most dreaded pirates of the time, seems to be taken from a cheesy soap opera, and takes away from the novel's literary quality. Overall, however, as Vald s imagines the fears, dreams, hopes, and desires of these late 17th-century heroines, she manages to tackle issues that transcend time and speak to all women who have, in one way or another, felt restrained by their gender. Recommended for public libraries and bookstores.
—Carmen Ospina, "Criticas" Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Book Details
Published
June 2, 2003
Publisher
Planeta Pub Corp
Pages
242
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9788408047957