Complete Works of Cecile Pineda
6 total works
When it was first published in 1985, Face met with critical acclaim and established Cecile Pineda among the very first Latina writers in the United States to be published by a major New York house. This new expanded edition, which marks the announcement of Face as a 2013 Neustadt Prize finalist, features a foreword by Nobel Prize–winning author J. M. Coetzee and a never-before-published interview with the author conducted by Dr. Francisco Lomelí.
The novel—based on an actual event—tracks the fortunes of Helio Cara, a poor but brilliant Brazilian man. When he hears that his mother is dying, Helio rushes from his shack in one of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas to the local telegraph office, only to fall down a steep hillside and literally lose his face, and in turn his identity. He rapidly loses his job, his lover, and his friends—his neighbour’s go so far as to burn down his shack—and flees to the Brazilian interior to live as an outcast in his mother’s tiny house.
Pineda deftly, hauntingly records Helio Cara’s decision to perform self-surgery, using only novocaine, to reconstruct his face and identity. This compelling metaphor for identity, already taught in American and Latino literature courses in numerous universities, stands ready to engross a new generation of readers.
The novel—based on an actual event—tracks the fortunes of Helio Cara, a poor but brilliant Brazilian man. When he hears that his mother is dying, Helio rushes from his shack in one of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas to the local telegraph office, only to fall down a steep hillside and literally lose his face, and in turn his identity. He rapidly loses his job, his lover, and his friends—his neighbour’s go so far as to burn down his shack—and flees to the Brazilian interior to live as an outcast in his mother’s tiny house.
Pineda deftly, hauntingly records Helio Cara’s decision to perform self-surgery, using only novocaine, to reconstruct his face and identity. This compelling metaphor for identity, already taught in American and Latino literature courses in numerous universities, stands ready to engross a new generation of readers.
This hilarious novel is a feminist spoof on the mostly-male magical realists of the ""Boom"" generation.
Depicting the 20th century as a character, this novel explores what happens when that character, dying, passes through a Bardo state-an intermediate state of the soul between death and rebirth.
This poetic narrative discusses the creative life of a 9th century Indian stonecarver who is drafted at an early age to spend his entire life working on the thousands of statues that fill the niches of an Indonesian temple. Exploring the muse-artist relationship as few works of fiction have done, this novel is an intensely political work-a parable that pits the blind cruelty of a feudal ruler against the creative expression of a single slave.
Structured like a jazz riff, this novel addresses questions of conception and birth, gender, war, and the slouch toward apocalypse.
Told in the voice of a five-year-old girl who sees more than she understands, this novel chronicles her passage through sickness, the separation of her parents, and a maze of secret lives, all with the richness of her budding imagination.