Zoom - Bilingual Book Club - Fruit of the Drunken Tree/ La Fruta del borrocharo

Date and Time for this Past Event

• Thursday, Aug 13, 2020  7-8

Location

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Details

Join us on August 13, 2020 at 7PM MST to discuss a great read in both English and Spanish.

Registration link available at EventBrite.

August's read:

 

“Ingrid Rojas Contreras captura la historia violenta de una Colombia desgarrada por las drogas, y como afecta la vida íntima de dos personajes, una niña y la joven empleada de su hogar…Una historia sobre la madurez, una historia de inmigrantes, una obra de misterio emocionante, completamente vívida y sentida, esta es una emocionante novela de debut que muestra a una escritora con pleno control de sus poderes. Hagan espacio en sus estanterías para una autora cuyo impresionante debut promete muchos más”.
–Julia Alvarez, autora de En el tiempo de las mariposas y De cómo las muchachas García perdieron sus acentos

 

A mesmerizing debut set in Colombia at the height of Pablo Escobar’s violent reign about a sheltered young girl and a teenage maid who strike an unlikely friendship that threatens to undo them both.

Seven-year-old Chula and her older sister Cassandra enjoy carefree lives thanks to their gated community in Bogotá, but the threat of kidnappings, car bombs, and assassinations hover just outside the neighborhood walls, where the godlike drug lord Pablo Escobar continues to elude authorities and capture the attention of the nation.

When their mother hires Petrona, a live-in-maid from the city’s guerrilla-occupied slum, Chula makes it her mission to understand Petrona’s mysterious ways. But Petrona’s unusual behavior belies more than shyness. She is a young woman crumbling under the burden of providing for her family as the riptide of first love pulls her in the opposite direction. As both girls’ families scramble to maintain stability amidst the rapidly escalating conflict, Petrona and Chula find themselves entangled in a web of secrecy that will force them both to choose between sacrifice and betrayal.

Inspired by the author’s own life and told through the alternating perspectives of the willful Chula and the achingly hopeful Petrona, Fruit of the Drunken Tree contrasts two very different, but inextricably linked coming-of-age stories. In lush prose, Rojas Contreras has written a powerful testament to the impossible choices women are often forced to make in the face of violence and the unexpected connections that can blossom out of desperation.