Purchase
Doubleday
August 2018
On Sale: July 31, 2018
ISBN: 0385542720
EAN: 9780385542722
Kindle: B0776DJ5Y2
Hardcover / e-Book
Add to Wish List
Literature and Fiction
βOne of the most dazzling and devastating novels Iβve read in a long time...Readers of Fruit of the Drunken Treewill surely be transformed.β
--San Francisco Chronicle
βSimultaneously propulsive and poetic, reminiscent of Isabel Allende...Listen to this new authorβs voice β she has something powerful to say.β
--Entertainment Weekly
A mesmerizing debut set in Colombia at the height Pablo Escobar's violent reign about a sheltered young girl and a teenage maid who strike an unlikely friendship that threatens to undo them both
Seven-year-old Chula and her older sister Cassandra enjoy carefree lives thanks to their gated community in BogotΓ‘, but the threat of kidnappings, car bombs, and assassinations hover just outside the neighborhood walls, where the godlike drug lord Pablo Escobar continues to elude authorities and capture the attention of the nation.
When their mother hires Petrona, a live-in-maid from the city's guerrilla-occupied slum, Chula makes it her mission to understand Petrona's mysterious ways. But Petrona's unusual behavior belies more than shyness. She is a young woman crumbling under the burden of providing for her family as the rip tide of first love pulls her in the opposite direction. As both girls' families scramble to maintain stability amidst the rapidly escalating conflict, Petrona and Chula find themselves entangled in a web of secrecy that will force them both to choose between sacrifice and betrayal.
Inspired by the author's own life, and told through the alternating perspectives of the willful Chula and the achingly hopeful Petrona, Fruit of the Drunken Tree contrasts two very different, but inextricably linked coming-of-age stories. In lush prose, Rojas Contreras has written a powerful testament to the impossible choices women are often forced to make in the face of violence and the unexpected connections that can blossom out of desperation.
 Media BuzzNews at 4: Wednesday Reads - August 22, 2018
| 
© 2003-2026