Fe En Disfraz / Faith in Disguise (Spanish Edition)

Puerto Rican Santos-Febres is a well-known, award-winning author and academic whose stories and novels have been translated into English and several other languages. Martín Tirado, a young academic from Puerto Rico working in Chicago, becomes obsessed with his mysterious colleague, Fe Verdejo, and ends up leaving his fiancée. Although this is an ordinary plotline, Martín and Fe's ensuing relationship exposes the roles of religion, class, race, and gender in colonial Latin America. Santos-Febres manipulates these constructions in the past and present, using both her characters and her narrative to discuss everything from 18th-century archives to modern-day virtual web presentations. In effect, the ambiguity of Fe's character (which we never really penetrate) poses the question, Is she the researcher disguising herself as a slave or vice versa? The novel intentionally leaves readers with unanswered questions. The male first-person narrative and strongly erotic content (both customary of the author's style) enhance this well-written novel, which is sure to become a literary classic. Recommended for all libraries and bookstores.—Sophie Lavoie, Univ. of New Brunswick, Fredericton