Books & Books and Miami Book Fair…

An Evening with Marisel Vera

In Conversation with Tayari Jones

Discussing

The Taste of Sugar

(Liveright, $26.95)

Tuesday, June 23, 7pm

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Marisel Vera emerges as a major voice of contemporary fiction with a heart- wrenching novel set in Puerto Rico on the eve of the Spanish-American War. Vera will discuss her sprawling family epic, The Taste of Sugar, with best-selling author of An American Marriage, Tayari Jones.

It is 1898, and groups of starving Puerto Ricans, los hambrientos, roam the parched countryside and dusty towns begging for food. Under the yoke of Spanish oppression, the Caribbean island is forced to prepare to wage war with the United States. Up in the mountainous coffee region of Utuado, Vicente Vega and Valentina Sanchez labor to keep their small farm from the creditors. When the Spanish-American War and the great San Ciriaco Hurricane of 1899 bring devastating upheaval, the young couple is lured, along with thousands of other puertorriqueños, to the sugar plantations of Hawaii—another US territory—where they are confronted by the hollowness of America’s promises of prosperity. Writing in the tradition of great Latin American storytelling, Marisel Vera’s The Taste of Sugar is an unforgettable novel of love and endurance, and a timeless portrait of the reasons we leave home.

BUY THE BOOK HERE

About the Author:

A proud Boricua, Marisel Vera is the author of If I Bring You Roses, and the two-time winner of Willow Review’s fiction prize. She lives in Chicago and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

About the Conversant:

Tayari Jones, is the author four novels, most recently An American Marriage. An Oprah’s Book Club Selection, the novel was awarded the Women’s Prize for Fiction, Aspen Words Prize and an NAACP Image Award. Jones, a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, has also been a recipient of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award,  United States Artist Fellowship, NEA Fellowship and Radcliffe Institute Bunting Fellowship. Jones is a graduate of Spelman College, University of Iowa, and Arizona State University.