Remaking A Lost Harmony

The 25 stories in this collection -- written since 1959 by Cuban, Dominican, and Puerto Rican writers -- make accessible Caribbean literature long lost to most readers in this country because of differences in language, politics, and culture. Despite the variations in style, setting, and period to be expected in such an anthology, there are some common threads here, notably the evocation of Caribbean heat and light and the intertwining of the political with the personal. Police massacres rend the fabric of everyday life in Ana Lydia Vega's moving, multifaceted 'Lillianne's Sunday' and disrupt a delicate voodoo ritual in Mayra Montero's 'Corrine, Amiable Girl'; and the body of a notorious guerrilla leader is a family pawn in Pedro Peix's multi-voiced 'Requiem for a Worthless Corpse'. An impressive collection, which opens the door to a body of work 'sandwiched between the North American and Latin American continents and literatures', in the words of author Julia Alvarez, and too long ignored.