A sweeping yet personal overview of the Latino population of America, drawn from hundreds of interviews and prodigious research that emphasizes the diversity and little-known history of our largest and fastest-growing minority. LatinoLand is an exceptional, all-encompassing overview of Hispanic America based on personal interviews, deep research, and Marie Arana's life experience as a Latina. At present, Latinos comprise 20 percent of the US population, a number that is growing. By 2050, census reports project that one in every three Americans will claim Latino heritage. But Latinos are not a monolith. They do not represent a single group. The largest numbers are Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Salvadorans, and Cubans. Each has a different cultural and political background. Puerto Ricans, for example, are US citizens, whereas some Mexican Americans never immigrated because the US-Mexico border shifted after the US invasion of 1848, incorporating what is now the entire southwest of the United States. Cubans came in two great waves: those escaping communism in the early years of Castro, many of whom were professionals and wealthy, and those permitted to leave in the Mariel boat lift twenty years later, representing some of the poorest Cubans, including prisoners. As LatinoLand shows, Latinos were some of the earliest immigrants to what is now the US--some of them arriving in the 1500s. They are racially diverse--a random fusion of White, Black, Indigenous, and Asian. Once overwhelmingly Catholic, they are becoming increasingly Protestant and Evangelical. They range from domestic workers and day laborers to successful artists, corporate CEOs, and US senators. Formerly solidly Democratic, they now vote Republican in growing numbers. They are as varied culturally as any immigrants from Europe or Asia. Marie Arana draws on her own experience as the daughter of an American mother and Peruvian father who came to the US at age nine, straddling two worlds, as many Latinos do. LatinoLand unabashedly celebrates Latino resilience and character and shows us why we must understand the fastest-growing minority in America.

Featuring a gathering of more than fifty of contemporary literature's finest voices, this volume will enchant, move, and inspire readers with its tales of The Writing Life . In it, authors divulge professional secrets: how they first discovered they were writers, how they work, how they deal with the myriad frustrations and delights a writer's life affords. Culled from ten years of the distinguished Washington Post column of the same name, The Writing Life highlights an eclectic group of luminaries who have wildly varied stories to tell, but who share this singularly beguiling career. Here are their pleasures as well as their peeves revelations of their deepest fears dramas of triumphs and failures insights into the demands and rewards. Each piece is accompanied by a brief and vivid biography of the writer by Washington Post Book World editor Marie Arana who also provides an introduction to the collection. The result is a rare view from the inside: a close examination of writers' concerns about the creative process and the place of literature in America. For anyone interested in the making of fiction and nonfiction, here is a fascinating vantage on the writer's world- an indispensable guide to the craft.

SIMON BOLI VAR --El Libertador--freed six countries from Spanish rule and is still the most revered figure in South America today. He traveled from Amazon jungles to the Andes mountains, engaged in endless battles and forged fragile coalitions of competing forces and races. He lived an epic life filled with heroism, tragedy (his only wife died young), and legend (he was saved from an assassination attempt by one of his mistresses). In Bolivar, Marie Arana has written a sweeping biography that is as bold and as passionate as its subject.
Drawing on a wealth of primary documents, Arana vividly captures the early nineteenth-century South America that made Bolivar the man he became: fearless general, brilliant strategist, consummate diplomat, dedicated abolitionist, gifted writer, and flawed politician. A major work of history, Bolivar not only portrays a dramatic life in all its glory, but is also a stirring declaration of what it means to be South American.

How do writers approach a new novel? Do they start with plot, character, or theme? A. S. Byatt starts with color. E. L. Doctorow begins with an image. In Off the Page, authors tell us how they work, giving insight into their writing process. Gathered from some of today's best writers-Paul Auster, Martin Amis, Gish Jen, Dan Chaon, Alice McDermott, and many others interviewed on washingtonpost.com's "Off the Page" series-host Carole Burns has woven their wisdom into chapters illuminating to any writer or reader. How does place influence authors? How do they make a sex scene work? How do they tell when the work is done? Walter Mosley defying genre; Shirley Hazzard on love; Michael Cunningham on compassion: these and more from Richard Ford, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Charles Baxter will deepen your appreciation for the art of writing and excite you to try new ways of writing yourself.

SILVER, SWORD AND STONE is a vibrant, sweeping history of Latin America, told through three compelling lenses. The first, precious metal, of which silver is an enormous part, is an obsession that burned brightly in pre-Columbian times, consumed Spain in its relentless conquest of America, drove a system of exploitation, and has morphed into Latin America's hope for the future. The second, the 'sword', is the culture of violence: from the Aztec and Inca empires through the bloody nineteenth-century wars of independence to state terrorism, the Shining Path, and today's drug wars. The third, embodied in temples, elaborate cathedrals, or simple piles of rock, is the region's fervent adherence to religious institutions, built in stone. The result is a dramatic portrait of a continent, brimming with colourful stories that cover a thousand years of history as well as real, living characters: Leonor Gonzalez, a tiny widow and mother of five living in La Rinconada, the highest human settlement in the world, informs the history of mining. Carlos Buergos - a Cuban drug dealer who honed his knife skills in the war in Angola, brought his cunning to America, then became a police informant - echoes the violence of the Aztecs, Pizarro, Rafael Trujillo and Pinochet. And Father Xavier Albo, a Jesuit priest who lives in La Paz, has worked for forty years to keep Catholicism alive among the Quechua and Aymara of the Andes, who would rather believe what their ancestors did. Vivid and impeccably researched, SILVER, SWORD AND STONE is the definitive narrative history of a region with a tumultuous but little-understood present as well as past.

The timeless stories of three contemporary Latin Americans whose lives represent three driving forces that have shaped the character of the region: exploitation, violence, and religion. Leonor Gonzales, a miner's widow, lives in a tiny community perched in the Andean cordillera of Peru, the highest human habitation on earth. Carlos Buergos is a Cuban who fought in the civil war in Angola and was among hundreds of criminals Cuba expelled to the USA. Xavier Albo is a Jesuit priest from Barcelona who emigrated to Bolivia, where he works among the indigenous people. In Silver, Sword and Stone Marie Arana seamlessly weaves these stories with the history of the past millennium to explain three enduring themes that have defined Latin America since pre-Columbian times: the foreign greed for its mineral riches, an ingrained history of violence, and the abiding power of religion. What emerges is a vibrant portrait of a people whose lives are increasingly intertwined with our own.

The dramatic life of the revolutionary hero Bolivar, who liberated South America - a sweeping narrative worthy of a Hollywood epic. Simon Bolivar's life makes for one of history's most dramatic canvases, a colossal narrative filled with adventure and disaster, victory and defeat. This is the story not just of an extraordinary man but of the liberation of a continent. A larger-than-life figure from a tumultuous age, Bolivar ignited a revolution, liberated six countries from Spanish rule and is revered as the great hero of South American history. In a sweeping narrative worthy of a Hollywood epic, BOLIVAR colourfully portrays this extraordinarily dramatic life. From his glorious battlefield victories to his legendary love affairs, Bolivar emerges as a man of many facets: fearless and inspiring general, consummate diplomat, passionate abolitionist and gifted writer.