The Love You Promised Me

by Silvia Molina, Daniel Unger (Translator)

Overview

The Love You Promised Me is the 6th recipient of the Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz Prize, awarded annually at the Guadalajara International Book Fair for a work of fiction by a woman writer in the Spanish language. Marcela, the heroine of the novel, is a modern, professional woman in her forties sifting through her disappointment after a brief but intense, extra-marital affair. As the novel opens, Marcela is in the town of San Lazaro, the home town of her forebears, not only to pick up the pieces of her life, but also to discover the secret past of her parents. Set in Mexico in 1994, Mexico's presidential election, the Mayan insurrection in Chiapas, and the assassination of presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio serve not only as backdrop, but also parallel the emotional vicissitudes in Marcela's own life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781880684627
Publisher:	Northwestern University Press
Publication date:	10/01/1999
Edition description:	1 ED
Pages:	228
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Born in Mexico City in 1946, Silvia Molina is the author of over a dozen novels and numerous works of children's literature. She received the Mexican Writers Center Award in 1980, and participated in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in 1990. 

Dave Unger is a Guatemalan author and translator. He is the U.S. coordinator of the Guadalajara International Book Fair and the Director of City College's Publishing Certificate Program. Among his many translations are Victor Montejo's version of Popol Vuh, Elena Garro's First Love & Look for My Obituary, and Barbara Jacobs's The Dead Leaves.

Editorial Reviews

"I want to know, Eduardo, how a doctor, an intellectual like yourself, falls in love," muses Marcella, the narrator of this thoughtful new work. She has reason to wonder, for Eduardo, the doctor who nursed her dying mother, fell in love with Marcella herself--a steady, hardworking wife and mother of two--and threw her life into disarray. Marcella has come to the town where her parents were born to try to piece together their lives even as she recovers from the tumultuous affair. What she discovers while searching through the archives is not entirely earth-shaking--a soberly realistic touch--but she is able to recapture both her past and herself: "Honestly, I had never thought of that. To accept myself for what I am." This lovely work, astonishing in its quietude, was deservedly winner of the Sor Juana In s de la Cruz Prize and belongs in all literary collections.--Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal" Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal