a la Sombra de Tu Nombre = The Shade of Your Name

The daughter of the former governor of Puerto Rico, Ferre has become one of that island's leading literary figures, producing two novels, La casa de la laguna (The House on the Lagoon, Vintage, 1997, a National Book Award finalist) and Vecindarios exc ntricos (Eccentric Neighborhoods, Random, 1999), two volumes of poetry, and three essay collections. This latest collection of essays again demonstrates intimate knowledge of her native island. From the first essay, which captures the mystery of an elegent cemetery in Old San Juan, to a later review of La fiesta del chivo (The Day of the Goat, see review, p. 31), Mario Vargas Llosa's recent novel about the infamous Domincan dictator Rafael Trujillo, Ferr proves to be an erudite commentator on tropical tastes. Many of these short pieces focus on the literary world, where she rattles off her opinions on everyone from James Michener to Michel Foucault, but despite her underlying Eurocentrism, she does pay special attention to the literature and folklore of the Caribbean. Most pungent are her reveries about Puerto Rico the ghosts that haunt its colonial structures and the humid nights, flowery gardens, and sweaty boleros that its high society came to embrace, so far from their Spanish past. Recommended for all bookstores and libraries.--Ed Morales, New York City