Our Lady of the Artichokes and Other Portuguese-American Stories

The stories in this prize-winning collection evoke a complete world, one so richly imagined and finely realized that the stories themselves are not so much read as experienced. The world of these stories is Portuguese-American, redolent of incense and spices, resonant with ritual and prayer, immersed in the California culture of freeway and commerce. Packed with lyrical prose and vivid detail, acclaimed writer Katherine Vaz conjures a captivating blend of Old World heritage and New World culture to explore the links between families, friends, strangers, and their world.

From the threat of a serial killer as the background for a young girl's first brush with death to the fallout of a modern-day visitation from the Virgin Mary; from an AIDS-stricken squatter refusing to vacate an empty Lisbon home to a mother's yearlong struggle with the death of her synesthetic daughter, these deft stories make their world ours.

Author: Katherine Vaz
Publisher: Bison
Published: 10/01/2008
Pages: 168
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.40lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.40w x 0.40d
ISBN: 9780803217904

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 08/11/2008 pg. 31
Kirkus Reviews 09/15/2008 pg. 974

About the Author
Katherine Vaz is a Briggs-Copeland Fellow in fiction at Harvard University. She is the author of Saudade, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection; Mariana, available in six languages and selected by the Library of Congress as one of the Top 30 International Books of 1998; and Fado & Other Stories, winner of the 1997 Drue Heinz Literature Prize.

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