My Mother’s Funeral by Adriana Paramo – Book Spotlight & Giveaway (US/Canada)

Here we are at the beginning of another week and I’ve got a book spotlight to share with you all and once again my apologies to the author for not having a book review ready to go.  I’m still struggling with getting Sam to eat and will be visiting the vet this week.  In the meantime back to My Mother’s Funeral by Adriana Paramo which I have started and think is quite good.  It caught my attention from the beginning but my lack of focus took over unfortunately for now.  It has the promise of being a memoir I’m really going to enjoy though.  Adriana is touring with My Mother’s Funeral over at TLC Book Tours so be sure to pop over and check out all the other tour stops for thoughts on the book.  For now I’m going to tell you what the book is about and a bit about the author plus a giveaway at the end of the post so check it out!  Enjoy…

MY MOTHER’S FUNERAL

Every woman has stories to tell about her mother. The mother that she remembers, the mother she wishes she’d had, the mother she doesn’t want to become, and then eventually, the mother she buries. Every immigrant woman has stories to tell about her homeland. My Mother’s Funeral is a combination of both: Mother and Homeland. The book circles around the death of Páramo’s mother but the landscape that emerges is not only one of personal loss and pain, but also of innocence, humor, violence and love.

Drawing heavily upon her childhood experiences and Colombian heritage, the author describes the volatile bond linking mothers and daughters in a culture largely unknown to Americans. The book moves between past (Colombia in the 1940’s) and present lives (USA in 2006), and maps landscapes both geographical (Bogotá, Medellín, Anchorage) as well as psychological, ultimately revealing the indomitable spirit of the women in her family, especially her mother from whom the reader learns what it means to be a woman in Colombia.

My Mother’s Funeral describes four Colombian generations of women who struggle, love, sing and die in a country of mysterious beauty as much as it charts the daunting and transforming process of the mother’s funeral and its unexpected byproduct: the re-acquaintance with a long lost brother, the women in the family, and with them, the whole culture.

Tour Stops with TLC Book Tours
Buy at: Amazon, Amazon Canada, and B&N

PRAISE FOR MY MOTHER’S FUNERAL

“With her luminous and elegant prose, Páramo gives us a deeply moving and richly observed portrait of not only a family but an entire nation. Full of hope, tenderness, and redemption, My Mother’s Funeral is a memoir of astonishing beauty; a spellbinding and devastating meditation on the ways we are transformed by love and loss, and how we may leave our home, but our home never leaves us.”–Patricia Engel, author of VIDA, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and Editors’ Choice

“In this intensely personal and evocative memoir, Adriana Páramo confronts her own past, her family’s past, and, to some extent, her homeland’s past. She uses her personal experiences to recreate her mother’s life, to convey her own loneliness and isolation, and to try to answer questions concerning life and death that are worthwhile, and that often take a lifetime to answer. With sensitivity, wit, and varying degrees of emotions along the way, My Mother’s Funeral offers not only a tribute to an exceptional matriarch, but presents a splendid portrait of her daughter’s heartbreaking journey to understand the meaning of their relationship. Páramo’s heartfelt grieving and soulfully evoked searching is a most generous and unforgettable gift for which I cannot thank her enough.”—James Cañón, Author of Tales from the Town of Widows

ADRIANA PARAMO

Páramo is a cultural anthropologist, writer and women’s rights advocate. Her book “Looking for Esperanza,” winner of the 2011 Social Justice and Equity Award in Creative Nonfiction (Benu Press) was one of the top ten best books by Latino authors in 2012, the best Women’s Issues Book at the 2013 International Latino Book Awards, and the recipient of a silver medal at the 2012 BOYA, Book of the Year Awards. She is also the author of “My Mother’s Funeral,” a CNF work set in Colombia released in October 2013 by Cavankerry Press.

Her work has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize and her essays have been included in the Notable American Essays of 2011 and 2012.

Her work has been recently published or is forthcoming in The Sun, the CNF Southern Sin Anthology (True Stories of the Sultry South & Women Behaving Badly), Minerva Rising, Redivider, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Los Angeles Review, American Athenaeum, Consequence Magazine, Fourteen Hills, Carolina Quarterly Review, Magnolia Journal, So To Speak, 580 Split, South Loop Review, New Plains Review, and the rest.

Currently she lives in Qatar, where she divides her time between writing and everything else. Everything else includes teaching zumba/Latin dance and Spanish lessons to Qatari students, among whom, there is a prince.

Adriana’s website, blog, and Facebook

GIVEAWAY DETAILS (US/Canada)

I have one copy of My Mother’s Funeral by Adriana Paramo to share with my readers.  To enter…

• Leave a comment for 1 entry into the giveaway.
• Tweet, share on Facebook, or blog for 2 extra entries.

This giveaway is open to US and Canadian residents only and I will draw for the winner on January 26/14.  Good luck!

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