International Writing by Women/ Latin America

Translated from Spanish by Anna Diegel with the author

A feminist comic masterpiece Playing on the rich Latin American literary tradition of the Saint's Life, Cuban writer Mireya Robles creates a humorous, ultimately horrifying

vision of the nuclear family in this innovative feminist novel, set in Cuba's asphyxiating provincial society of the nineteen fifties. Hagiography of Narcisa the Beautiful is an important text both for gender studies and for Latin American literature.

"This abrasive and lively novel memorably analyzes the multiple interactions of a hilariously dysfunctional family." KIRKUS REVIEWS

"Very amusing, very feminist - a rarity in Hispanic Letters" PROFESSOR JEAN FRANCO, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY