Puerto Rico (United States) / All works
Short stories
The Youngest Doll
Papeles de Pandora
Rosario Ferré · 1976
Synopsis
The collection mixes short stories and poems, which serve as links between the narratives, to call into question the stereotypes of the Caribbean woman in the patriarchal bourgeoisie of Puerto Rico. Women of high society, protected but oppressed, and women of the people, kept on the margins, cross paths in it: a girl who dreams of being a dancer is pushed by her family to marry a young aristocrat, an old aunt withdrawn from the world devotes herself to making dolls.
Context
Announced under the title Papeles de Pandora, puta y señora, the book appeared in 1976 in Mexico City from Joaquín Mortiz under the first part of that title alone; Vintage reissued it in 2000. “La muñeca menor” had first appeared in 1972 in the review Zona de carga y descarga. The author herself translated it into English under the title The Youngest Doll, published in 1991 by the University of Nebraska Press. The introduction of La Navaja Suiza, in 2018, sees it as a decisive step for Puerto Rican literature and the writer's literary manifesto.
Who it is for
For reading the first book of a major writer from Puerto Rico, between magical realism, feminism and irony.
Prizes and reception
Patricia Hart, in The Nation, hailed a magical and provocative feminism that unsettles notions of time, place and identity.
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