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    The Book of Emma Reyes: A Memoir
    Unavailable
    The Book of Emma Reyes: A Memoir
    Unavailable
    The Book of Emma Reyes: A Memoir
    Audiobook5 hours

    The Book of Emma Reyes: A Memoir

    Written by Emma Reyes

    Narrated by Marisol Ramirez

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    A literary discovery: an extraordinary account, in the tradition of The House on Mango Street and Angela's Ashes, of a Colombian woman's harrowing childhood
     
    This astonishing memoir was hailed as an instant classic when first published in Colombia in 2012, nearly a decade after the death of its author, who was encouraged in her writing by Gabriel García Márquez. Comprised of letters written over the course of thirty years, and translated and introduced by acclaimed writer Daniel Alarcón, it describes in vivid, painterly detail the remarkable courage and limitless imagination of a young girl growing up with nothing.
     
    Emma Reyes was an illegitimate child, raised in a windowless room in Bogotá with no water or toilet and only ingenuity to keep her and her sister alive. Abandoned by their mother, she and her sister moved to a Catholic convent housing 150 orphan girls, where they washed pots, ironed and mended laundry, scrubbed floors, cleaned bathrooms, sewed garments and decorative cloths for the nuns—and lived in fear of the Devil. Illiterate and knowing nothing of the outside world, Emma escaped at age nineteen, eventually establishing a career as an artist and befriending the likes of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera as well as European artists and intellectuals. The portrait of her childhood that emerges from this clear-eyed account inspires awe at the stunning early life of a gifted writer whose talent remained hidden for far too long.
     
    For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,800 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateAug 8, 2017
    ISBN9781524778576
    Unavailable
    The Book of Emma Reyes: A Memoir

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    Reviews for The Book of Emma Reyes

    4/5

    29 ratings2 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I had no idea who Emma Reyes was when I picked up this book at a brechó (someone had donated). It was a total revelation to me – of Emma herself.The memories of her childhood, written (and edited) by a fifty-year-old Emma, who by this time had witnessed the death of her son in Paraguay, traveled the world and settled as an artist in France. The greatest accomplishment of this book is not what she says but how she says it - with magic and without a hint of victim-hood. She clearly went very far beyond surviving all of that. It is also the story of countless children in South America and across the world who even to this day endure similar horrors. I feel almost like I was told a secret. It is a book I will keep not least because of the wonderful drawings.
    • 5/5
      I had not idea who Emma Reyes was when I saw this book. But the idea of a memoir written in the form of letters to a friend appealed to me so I decided to give it a try. I am still not sure who Emma Reyes is (this memoir finishes too early in her life) but the glimpse into Colombia of the 20s and 30s will stay with me for a long time. I rarely read introductions before reading a book. Daniel Alarcón does a great job introducing the book though - setting the context and the backstory and explaining how this book came to be. And then you start reading the letters. The story in the letters start when Emma is 3 (or thereabouts) and end when she is 19. But they are not written until the late 60s when the painter is in her 50s and her life had changed drastically. She writes the letters to a friend, trying to explain where she came from and recall a story that is both heartbreaking and unbelievable. Considering how young Emma was when the story starts, you have to wonder how reliable her memories are. She addresses that more than once in the letters and explains how all the misery and suffering made her remember and she had her sister to assist with the memories. One have to wonder though. But even if we accept that we are dealing with an unreliable narrator, the story still works. Emma grows up in a windowless room with an older sister, a woman that may be her mother (but is never explicitly stated) and a little boy. She is allowed out to play and she spends most of her time out in the trash, looking for things to play with. And then things change and they start traveling from one Colombian rural location to another - until the day when the two girls are abandoned and end up in a convent. And somewhere in the middle of all the beatings, hunger and suffering, there is Emma - unhappy, unloved and mostly invisible. I am not sure how much of what she narrates is true and where the embellishments are. It seems like at least the base of the story is right and even if it veers in the fictional space, it is still worth reading. However, it is not for people that expect a happy story. Columbia is presented as a hovel; most of the people we meet are either evil or more evil than good (some by design, some seem to had just decided that this is easier); everyone is broken and as a result tries to break everyone else. The story through the eyes of a child told by a woman at the middle of her life sounds almost magical - until you realize that there is nothing magical or fairy - it is just life.