From Publishers Weekly
The winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for its celebration of diversity, Cofer's collection of essays, fiction and poetry depicts the Puerto Rican immigrant experience. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Poet and novelist Ortiz Cofer offers her readers an affecting view of Puerto Rican New York in this autobiographical assortment of essays and poems. Her stories celebrate, mourn, and honor Latinas, collectively and individually, and also consider the influential men in her own life: the author's beloved, unknowable, philandering father; the first boy she loved; her heartbreakingly deteriorating grandfather. The alternating sections of evocative prose and narrative poetry first construct a vision of life in the busy apartments of El Building and the shops of its neighborhood, then comment directly on self, heritage, culture clash, racism, and sexism. A strong, moving set of daughter-poems finishes this slim but substantial volume. Recommended for ethnic, womens', memoir, and larger general collections.- Janet Ingraham, Worthington P.L., OhioCopyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Ortiz Cofer's collection of her stories, essays, and poems is a delicious smorgasbord of the sights, smells, tastes, and sounds recalled from a cross-cultural girlhood. Whether delineating the yearnings for an island homeland or the frustrations of a first-generation immigrant's struggles to grow up in "el building" in a New Jersey barrio, Ortiz Cofer's work is rich in evocative detail and universal concerns. On the whole, it constitutes a coming-of-age-in-America saga focused on a young Judith baffled by anti-Hispanic prejudice, by Puerto Rican and black hostilities, by the Roman Catholic conflict between flesh and spirit, and by the challenge of an adolescence spent in "cultural compromise." Part of that coming-of-age, Ortiz Cofer shows us, was the quickening of the pulse when entering a library, for books "contained most of the information I needed to survive in two languages and two worlds. . . . Reading books empowered me." Whitney Scott


From Kirkus Reviews
A compassionate, delicate rendering of Puerto Rican life in America--told in poetry and 15 short stories--as Cofer continues to explore territory first described in her debut novel, The Line of The Sun (1989). In ``El Building,'' a noisy barrio tenement teeming with life in Paterson, New Jersey, the joys and tragedies of childhood, adolescence, and adulthood unfold in separate vignettes. Young love is nipped in the bud by mothers protecting their studious sons from dark-skinned neighbors (``American History'' and ``Advanced Biology''), while the fragile relationship between a girl and her father appears in several variations, as in ``Not for Sale,'' where parental tyranny over a 16-year-old's willfulness is transformed by a disturbing encounter with Middle Eastern traditions. Grandparents and siblings are portrayed from the same forgiving perspective, but in addition to loving family portraits, sharply etched sketches of women in crisis also emerge. In ``Coraz¢n Caf‚,'' the young widow of a deli owner mourns his sudden death by recalling the innocent romance the two of them had on ``the Island,'' finding in the recollection--and realization that she has become a vital member of the Paterson community--the strength to carry on without him. A darker side of immigrant life surfaces in ``Nada,'' however, when a mother's loss of her only son in Vietnam, shortly after the death of her husband, unhinges her: she gives away all she owns, throwing the remainder out the window in a frenzy, before killing herself. With the poetry accenting and enhancing themes revealed in the prose: a remarkably cohesive, moving collection--a tribute both to Cofer's considerable talent and her heritage. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


From Book News, Inc.
A collection of poetry, personal essays, and short fiction in which the dominant subject--the lives of Puerto Ricans in a New Jersey barrio--is drawn from the author's own childhood. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Cofer tells readers of the women's lives that entangled with hers in El Building in Paterson, New Jersey. A community transplanted from what they now view as an island paradise, these Puerto Rican families yearn for the colors and tastes of their homeland. As they carve out their lives as Americans, their days are filled with drama, success and tragedy.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

The winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for its celebration of diversity, Cofer's collection of essays, fiction and poetry depicts the Puerto Rican immigrant experience. (May)

Library Journal - Janet Ingraham, Worthington P.L., Ohio

Poet and novelist Ortiz Cofer offers her readers an affecting view of Puerto Rican New York in this autobiographical assortment of essays and poems. Her stories celebrate, mourn, and honor Latinas, collectively and individually, and also consider the influential men in her own life: the author's beloved, unknowable, philandering father; the first boy she loved; her heartbreakingly deteriorating grandfather. The alternating sections of evocative prose and narrative poetry first construct a vision of life in the busy apartments of El Building and the shops of its neighborhood, then comment directly on self, heritage, culture clash, racism, and sexism. A strong, moving set of daughter-poems finishes this slim but substantial volume. Recommended for ethnic, womens', memoir, and larger general collections.

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