Synopses & Reviews
National Book Award finalist Cristina GarcÍa delivers a powerful and gorgeous novel about the intertwining lives of the denizens of a luxurious hotel in an unnamed Central American capital in the midst of political turmoil. The lives of six men and women converge over the course of one week. There is a Japanese-Mexican-American matadora in town for a bull-fighting competition; an ex-guerrilla now working as a waitress in the hotel coffee shop; a Korean manufacturer with an underage mistress ensconced in the honeymoon suite; aninternational adoption lawyer of German descent; a colonel who committed atrocities during his country’s long civil war; and a Cuban poet who has come with his American wife to adopt a local infant. With each day, their lives become further entangled, resulting in the unexpected—the clash of histories and the pull of revenge and desire.Cristina GarcÍa’s magnificent orchestration of politics, the intimacies of daily life, and the frailty of human nature unfolds in a moving, ambitious, often comic, and unforgettable tale.
Review
“With beauty, elegance, and finesse, Cristina García weaves together a complex
tale in writing as stunning as the flourish of a matador’s cape. A brave
work told brilliantly. I toss you carnations, Cristina. ¡Brava!” —Sandra Cisneros
Review
“The sultry atmosphere, dash of the supernatural, and well-developed characters are a winning mix, and the story’s many parts move with frictionless ease.” —Publishers Weekly
Review
“Skilled, sensuous and wry.” –Kirkus
Review
“Exotic, lush, and sensual.” -O Magazine
Review
“Garcia strides and twirls with a matador’s daring, grace, and focus as she enters the psyches of diverse, intense, and unnerving characters; choreographs converging and dramatic story lines; and confronts the pervasiveness of the inexplicable. Streamlined, sexy, darkly witty, and succinctly tragic, Garcia’s fifth sharply imagined novel of caustic social critique concentrates the horrors of oppression and violence into a compulsively readable tale of coiled fury and penetrating insight.” —Booklist (starred review)
Review
"In this novel of many hearts and voices, Cristina García enchants us with the lyricism
Review
“Garcia’s amazing is to depict psychologically complicated characters against the backdrop of a complicated society….Garcia is at the height of her imaginative powers, and The Lady Matador’s Hotel is a tour de force, at once hopeful and hopeless.” –Ms. Magazine
Review
“The novel has the energy of an obsessive tango. Or, indeed, a bullfight.”
--The New York Times Book Review
Review
“In this novel of many hearts and voices, Cristina García enchants us with the lyricism and humor and political engagement that we've come to expect from her work. Thank goodness the Lady matador has opened her extraordinarily fascinating hotel to all of us via Cristina's keen eye and gorgeous prose."
—Edwidge Danticat, author of The Dew Breaker
Review
"Dictators and their aftermath continue to dominate the literature, and the lives, of the Americas. Writers from Gabriel Garcia Marquez to Julia Alvarez to Junot Diaz chronicle the force of grief these regimes leave behind, as well as the hopeful resiliency of citizens suffering under the greed and corruption of leaders who fear nothing but the loss of power. The winds of change in these fascist governments are measured by which way the United States' Latin America policy weathervane is pointed. What doesn't change is the ferociousness inevitably directed at the innocent." Helena Maria Viramontes, Ms. Magazine (Read the entire )
Synopsis
National Book Award finalist Cristina García delivers a powerful and gorgeous novel about the intertwining lives of the denizens of a luxurious hotel in an unnamed Central American capital in the midst of political turmoil. The lives of six men and women converge over the course of one week. There is a Japanese-Mexican-American matadora in town for a bull-fighting competition; an ex-guerrilla now working as a waitress in the hotel coffee shop; a Korean manufacturer with an underage mistress ensconced in the honeymoon suite; aninternational adoption lawyer of German descent; a colonel who committed atrocities during his country’s long civil war; and a Cuban poet who has come with his American wife to adopt a local infant. With each day, their lives become further entangled, resulting in the unexpected—the clash of histories and the pull of revenge and desire.Cristina García’s magnificent orchestration of politics, the intimacies of daily life, and the frailty of human nature unfolds in a moving, ambitious, often comic, and unforgettable tale.
Synopsis
National Book Award finalist Garcia delivers a powerful and gorgeous novel about the intertwining lives of the denizens of a luxurious hotel in an unnamed Central American capital in the midst of political turmoil.
About the Author
Cristina GarcÍa is the author of four novels: Dreaming in Cuban, The AgÜero Sisters, Monkey Hunting, and A Handbook to Luck. GarcÍa's work has been nominated for a National Book Award and translated into a dozen languages. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers' Award, a Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University, and an NEA grant, among others. She is currently the artistic director for the Centrum Writers Exchange in Port Townsend, Washington and has taught literature and writing at numerous universities. In 2009-10, she will be a Visiting Professor and a Black Mountain Institute Teaching Fellow in Creative Writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.