The epic story of the complex, sensual, tragic, and remarkable life of a legendary Puerto Rican madam

Born into poverty and then abandoned by her mother, Isabel "La Negra" Luberza blossoms into a supremely sensual young woman. Obsessed with attaining aristocratic status--armed with incredible physical presence, indomitable ambition, and keen intelligence--she meets Fernando FornarIs, the man who will forever change her life. With a parcel of land given to her by her rich, white married lover, Isabel transforms herself into a hard-edged and merciless businesswoman--abandoning her own newborn son to become Puerto Rico's most feared and respected madam, a collector of society's secrets, a queen of the notorious brothel that emerges as the island's true political and economic heart.

Set against the rich backdrop of the Caribbean and the United States during the tumultuous years of World War II, Mayra Santos-Febres's "Our Lady of the Night" is a breathtaking novel of passion, power, and the devastating price of achieving everything one wishes for.

"Nuestra senora de la noche" es la historia de una de las mujeres mas sensuales, complejas y tragicas de Puerto Rico quien logro transformarse en la mujer mas poderosa, temida y respetada de la isla

Pobre y abandonada por su madre, la nina Isabel se vio obligada a vivir una vida servil antes de ni siquiera aprender a leer. Luego de una infancia ardua, llena de trabajos y constantes luchas, y ahora armada con una belleza despampanante y una parcela de tierra obsequiada por su turbio amor, el licenciado corso Fernando Fornaris, la nina Isabel se esfuma y aparece en su lugar Dona Isabel "La Negra" Luberza Oppenheimer: una mujer de negocios, tan implacable y sensual como ardorosamente ambiciosa.

Su vida se convirtio en leyenda, en parabola y mito para los habitantes del barrio de San Anton y todos aquellos barrios donde las mujeres como Isabel tienen que enfrentar una vida donde cada paso es un martirio.

Con su prosa sensual, llena de color y poesia, Mayra Santos-Febres nos propone una reflexion sobre la naturaleza de la rabia y el amor, la marginacion y el exito, y la constitucion de las naciones modernas. Todo esto en el marco de una historia de vida inolvidable.

Discovered by Martha Divine in the backstreets of San Juan, picking over garbage, drugged out of his mind and singing boleros that transfix the listener, a fifteen year old hustler is transformed into Sirena Selena, a diva whose uncanny beauty and irrisistable voice will be their ticket to fame and fortune. Auditioning for one of the luxury hotels in the Dominican Republic, Selena casts her spell over Hugo Graubel, one of the hotel's rich investors. Graubel is a powerful man in the Republic, married with children. Silena, determined to escape the poverty and abuse s/he suffered as a child, engages Graubel in a long seduction in this mordant, intensely lyrical tragi-comedy - part masque, part cabaret - about identity (class, race, gender) and "the hunger and desire to be other things."