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Book Summary and Reviews of Perla by Carolina De Robertis

Perla by Carolina De Robertis

Perla

by Carolina De Robertis

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  • Published:
  • Mar 2012, 256 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

A coming-of-age story, based on a recent shocking chapter of Argentine history, about a young woman who makes a devastating discovery about her origins with the help of an enigmatic houseguest.

Perla Correa grew up a privileged only child in Buenos Aires, with a cold, polished mother and a straitlaced naval officer father, whose profession she learned early on not to disclose in a country still reeling from the abuses perpetrated by the deposed military dictatorship. Perla understands that her parents were on the wrong side of the conflict, but her love for her papá is unconditional. But when Perla is startled by an uninvited visitor, she begins a journey that will force her to confront the unease she has suppressed all her life, and to make a wrenching decision about who she is, and who she will become.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. De Robertis's lyrical flights are grounded in the fulfillment of the most desperate wishes of disappeared parents and their children, culminating in a wrenching catharsis about rebirth and healing." - Publishers Weekly

"Starred Review. Lyrically combining into reality both the fantastic and the horrific, De Robertis weaves a beautiful and plain-faced tale about birth, rebirth, and the responsibility of inheritance from complex, startling history." - Booklist

"Starred Review. A translator, short fiction writer, and novelist... De Robertis skillfully weaves a lyrical voice around her characters that treats victims, perpetrators, and bystanders with the same care and honesty." - Library Journal

"An elegantly written and affecting meditation on life in the wake of atrocity." - Kirkus Reviews

This information about Perla 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.

Reader Reviews

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Diane S.

Perla
This is a novel about Argentina, about the men and women who "disappeared"under their dictatorship and about the mothers and grandmothers who protested in the square demanding the return of their son, daughters and grandchildren. It is a novel about a young woman named Perla, the secrets in her house and the truths she does not want to face. I was first drawn to this novel by the cover and the title, before I even knew what this book was about. The prose is elegant and beautiful, even when at times the subject matter is horrific. The use of magic realism is seamless and blended into the novel in such a cohesive way I can't imagine the story without it. It is a novel where one savors the words, rereads and envies the writer's abilities. By the time I came to the story's end I found I was shivering. Absolutely astounding telling of a country's history and a young woman's search for herself.

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Author Information

Carolina De Robertis Author Biography

Caro De Robertis is the award-winning and bestselling author of several books, including The Palace of Eros, The President and the Frog, Cantoras, and more. Their work has been translated into eighteen languages and has garnered numerous honors including a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, two Stonewall Book Awards, Italy's Rhegium Julii Prize, and the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature, which they were the first openly nonbinary person to receive. De Robertis is also an award-winning literary translator and a professor at San Francisco State University. They live in Oakland, California, with their two children. Find out more at CaroDeRobertis.com.

Author Interview
Link to Carolina De Robertis's Website

Other books by Carolina De Robertis at BookBrowse
  • The Palace of Eros jacket
  • The Invisible Mountain jacket

6 more...

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