Bitter Grounds

Mercedes Prieto, a Pipil Indian, comes from such a background. After losing her son and husband in the aftermath of a violent uprising against rich plantation owners, she flees with her daughter Jacinta to work in the household of Elena de Contreras.

Their arrival sets in motion a spellbinding story that takes three generations to unfold, as the two families become inexorably intertwined and their private turmoil mirrors the upheaval of the world around them.

Rich in history, tradition, color, and drama, Bitter Grounds is at once poetic and unsentimental, a page-turning saga that satisfies and entertains to the very last drop.

Discussion Questions:
1.How do the generations change, in their attitudes, beliefs, aspirations? Consider the world events surrounding these characters during the span of the novel, from 1932 to 1977: How are outside forces (economic depression, war, worker rebellion, civil unrest) reflected in their daily lives?

2. What is the significance of "Los Dos," the daily radio soap opera-both its content and the rituals of its audience?

3. Coffee provides a way of life in El Salvador. What is its role in the lives of these characters, symbolically and literally?

4. There are elements of magic realism to this story. Discuss examples of magic realism and their role in the story: do you think the departure from reality adds to or detracts from your belief in these events? Why do you think the author chose to include them? Other writers (Laura Esquivel, Isabel Allende, Gabriel García Márquez, to name a few) have also used this effect; if you've read their work, compare it to Bitter Grounds, or discuss if or why Latin American writing lends itself to magic realism. Do any North American writers try their hands at it?

5. "In years to come, when she thought of this moment, Elena would know that it was here, at this time-standing around the bend of Cecilia's lake house, the dying sun pouring itself into the blue bowl of the lake-that her life was forever divided into its own before and after." (page 130) Discuss other characters whose lives take equally dramatic and irreversible turns.

6. Bitter Grounds depicts the sharp differences between the lives of the rich and the poor. But the two classes also shared much in common. In what ways were they alike?

7. As the poor turned to the left for help politically, the rich turned to the right, and this polarization eventually led to a tragic civil war. Who do you think is to blame for the failure to find a middle ground?

8. Women writing about women are sometimes accused of doing so at the expense of their male characters. Discuss the role of men in this novel and how you feel they are portrayed.

9. What did you find interesting about mother/daughter relationships in Latin America? And how do these differ, if at all, from the way things work in our country?

10. In the final analysis, who were the winners and who were the losers in Bitter Grounds?

Sandra Benítez, in her own words:
What was your inspiration for Bitter Grounds?
How much comes from your own life experience?

I grew up in Mexico and El Salvador in the 1940's and 50's. Through my father, who was commercial attaché at the American embassy in El Salvador, we came to know and associate with the country's wealthy and powerful families. I went to school with their sons and daughters, many of whom are still my friends today.

On the other hand, we had several women in our house who had left their villages, children and families behind to come to work for us. Because they were all illiterate, they often asked me, even when I was just nine or ten, to read a letter from home or write one for them. Being a scribe made me privy to their true stories, and allowed me to see into the hearts of these women and made me conscious, even at a very early age, of the differences between their lives and ours.

I wrote Bitter Grounds to help myself and others better understand how the disparities between the rich and the poor polarized the left and right and led to the long, tragic civil war in El Salvador.

Also, much of Part Three in Bitter Grounds is based on the kidnapping by guerilla forces of my brother-in-law who was a surgeon in El Salvador in the 1970's. I flew there right after he was taken to lend comfort to my sister as we waited out the agonizingly slow negotiations. After his family paid a "war tax," he was set free. Others, even though their families paid such ransoms, were not so lucky.

You were 52 when your first novel, A Place Where the Sea Remembers, was published. Have you been writing all your life or did you come to it later and, if so, how?

I came to writing late. When I was 39, almost as a lark, I took a class in writing and all the stories that had impressed my heart began to bubble up. I was hooked and began to think of being a writer. I quit my job and began writing full time. It was an especially big risk, I think, because I was writing stories about "the other America," Latino stories that had not yet found a place in mainstream American literature. It took me 13 years to get my first book published.

Who are some of your favorite authors?

Among those who have influenced my writing are Louise Erdrich and Isabel Allende for the richness of their storytelling skills, Ernest Hemingway for the deceptive simplicity of his language and Tim O'Brien for teaching me to go beyond what seems to have happened to explore what might have really happened.

You grew up between two cultures-Latin American and North American. How do you think this affects your writing?

I'm the daughter of a Puerto Rican mother and a father from rural Missouri, I spent my first 15 years living outside the U.S.; then five more years moving back and forth between them; then finally moved to Missouri and then Minnesota where I now reside. As a result, I feel comfortable writing about either culture and I think I especially benefit from understanding how the people in each culture think about the other.

What has been your biggest surprise, if any, of being a published author?

That my readers sometimes find significant meanings in my stories that I never, until they told me about them, realized were there.

About the Author:
Sandra Benítez was born in Washington, D.C., and spent her childhood and early adulthood in Mexico and El Salvador. She then moved to the United States and received an undergraduate degree and a master's degree from Northeast Missouri State University. She published her first novel, A Place Where the Sea Remembers, when she was 52. She lives with her husband in Edina, Minnesota.