The Year of Our Revolution: Love and Rebellion in the 1960s: Stories and Poems - Softcover

Cofer, Judith Ortiz

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141309741 ISBN 13: 9780141309743

Publisher: Puffin, 2000

Synopsis

A collection of short stories, with poems and essays, addresses the theme of straddling two cultures as do the offspring of Hispanic parents living in the United States. Reprint.

About this title

Review

Judith Ortiz Cofer's spirited multigenre collection includes poetry, myth, fiction, and essays from the viewpoint of young people coming of age in a troubling world. One of the major characters, Maria Elenita, follows her own curiosity and sense of adventure through awakening womanhood and the discovery of her sexual self. Her mother, according to Maria Elenita, decorated their home in "early Puerto Rican: a religious print in every room.... It came to be a symbol for me of our relationship in those days."

The matrilineal connection is revealed as both homeplace and battleground. The poem "Mamacita" describes mother as a prevailing presence who "hummed all day long / over the caboose kitchen" and "dragged her broom / across a lifetime of linoleum floors." On the other hand, in the essay "Vida," mother becomes controversy: "My mother started to complain about the little things Vida did, or did not do.... Mother was spreading her wings and getting ready to fight for exclusivity over her nest." The revolution depicted is part of the human condition, the rough change from child to adult, couched in the bright colors of the barrio. --Susan Swartwout

About the Author

Judith Ortiz Cofer is also the author of An Island Like You: Stories from the Barrio.

About this edition

• Publisher: Puffin
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0141309741
• ISBN 13: 9780141309743
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 144