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A Novel
by Reyna Grande
Paperback Original. Dancing with Butterflies uses the alternating voices of four very different women whose lives interconnect through a common passion for their Mexican heritage and a dance company called Alegría. Yesenia, who founded Alegría with her husband, Eduardo, sabotages her own efforts to remain a vital, vibrant woman when she travels back and forth across the Mexican border for cheap plastic surgery. Elena, grief stricken by the death of her only child and the end of her marriage, finds herself falling dangerously in love with one of her underage students. Elena's sister, Adriana, wears the wounds of abandonment by a dys-functional family and becomes unable to discern love from abuse. Soledad, the sweet-tempered illegal immigrant who designs costumes for Alegría, finds herself stuck back in Mexico, where she returns to see her dying grandmother.
Reyna Grande has brought these fictional characters so convincingly to life that readers will imagine they know them.
"Starred Review. Nothing is simple for these complex women, but the art and culture of a Mexican dance tradition is what finally saves their lives, and we're lucky to be in the audience." - Publishers Weekly
"Absorbing arcana about butterflies and Folklorico traditions....not to mention an unflinching depiction of the immigration debacle's personal toll, underscore the fierce humanity of these wise-Latinas-in-training." - Kirkus Reviews
"Award-winning novelist Reyna Grande returns with a novel full of music, motion, and heart. Dancing with Butterflies is about four women whose stories and friendships are as rich as the Folklórico dance that brought them together. Grande is a novelist to watch." - Tananarive Due, American Book Award-winning author of Blood Colony
This information about Dancing with Butterflies was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Reyna Grande came to the United States at age nine to join her father, who had left her behind in Mexico for several years. She went on to become the first person in her family to obtain a higher education. She holds a B.A. and an M.F.A. in creative writing. Her first novel, Across a Hundred Mountains, received the El Premio Aztlan Literary Award in 2006 and an American Book Award in 2007. Her novel has been required reading at various high schools and colleges across the nation. She is currently at work on a memoir.
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