In Marisel Vera‘s The Taste of Sugar, a young Puerto Rican couple, their farm struggling in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War and the San Ciriaco Hurricane of 1899, is lured to the sugar plantations of Hawaii, only to discover the hollowness of America’s promises. Praised by Kirkus as “a sprawling family epic that stretches from the mountains of Puerto Rico to Hawaii and across decades of love, famine, and war,” Vera’s second novel is a “sweeping, emotional tale that puts her characters, and her readers, through an emotional wringer.” She is joined by Washington Post book critic Ron Charles.
In Conversation: On The Taste of Sugar
In Conversation: On The Taste of Sugar
Author:
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Marisel Vera
Marisel Vera is the author of If I Bring You Roses, about a Puerto Rican couple who migrates to Chicago during Operation Bootstrap. She won the Willow Review literary magazine’s fiction prize for her short stories “The Liberation of Carmela Lopez” (2000) and “Shoes for Cuba” (2003). The setting of Vera’s The Taste of Sugar (Liveright) is Puerto Rico 1898, and groups of starving Puerto Ricans, los hambrientos, roaming the parched countryside and dusty towns begging for food. Up in the mountainous coffee region of Utuado, Vicente Vega and Valentina Sanchez labor to keep their small farm from the creditors. But after the devastation brought about by the Spanish-American War and the San Ciriaco Hurricane of 1899, the young couple is lured, along with thousands of other puertorriqueños, to the sugar plantations of Hawaii —another US territory—and the realities behind America’s promises of prosperity. Puerto Rican author Ivelisse Rodriguez (Love War Stories) called The Taste of Sugar “an important contribution to Puerto Rican literature by chronicling the U.S. invasion of Puerto Rico, the San Ciriaco hurricane, and the mass migration to Hawaii. Throughout, Vera captures the ‘trabajo y tristeza’ of the Puerto Rican people. Brava to Marisel Vera for telling our stories!”
Ron Charles
Ron Charles writes about books and publishing for The Washington Post. For a dozen years, he enjoyed teaching American literature and critical theory in the Midwest. Before moving to Washington D.C, he edited the books section of the Christian Science Monitor in Boston. His wife is an English teacher and the cinematographer of their satirical series, “The Totally Hip Video Book Review.”
