A delightful and insightful bi-lingual collection of short stories covering a wide array of cultures and eliciting an even wider range of emotions. The Spanish and English versions of each story are printed side-by-side on opposite pages, making this an excellent tool for learning as well as good reading in either language.
"Dreams.../Sueños..." is a compilation of stories about life from different perspectives. It is a doorway to the 21st century where discovery is magical, even fantasic, and yet it is grounded in a reality that has an edge. Bevin takes the reader on journeys that transit between dimensions, juxtaposing the seen and the unseen, the mundane and the miraculous. Nonpolitical but with a message, irreligious yet full of spirit, the stories express themselves in many voices, conflating race, gender, age, rage, ecstasy, and resignation. Her overriding mark of style is her humor that twists each character's fate with ironic promise, leaving the reader expecting the best...
Excerpt
Near dawn, the village's dogs began to bark with unusual alarm and Fico's father scrambled out of bed half naked to look through the living room windows, followed by Grandpa and Uncle Oscar, Menelao's father.
Potent lights flashed here and there, accompanied by brake screeches and grinding gears. "It's a military truck," Grandpa said, crouching behind the window in his underwear.
Outside, two men yelled orders, followed by blows and screams coming from a neighboring house. And then, silence.
The grown-ups went back to the windows, trying to see without being seen. And then, two shots pierced the night, and the front door was pushed off its hinges with one terrifying blow.
Copyright 2001 Teresa Bevin
Short Stories that Capture Your Imagination
This collection of short stories captures the reader's imagination from the first words of the first story, "For many nights, I dreamt of dead people." We are drawn in to the ordinary lives of ordinary people who by the time we finish the story has become extraordinary.
Teresa Bevin is the Cuban Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Her book is a collection of family stories, baring for all the conflicting feelings that both bind and pull families apart. Rafaela, in Sea of Words, says of her husband, "In a spot in the middle of her forehead, almost between her eyes, she sometimes felt a slight vibration. If she concentrated enough, she could inexplicably capture the essence of her husband's thoughts, and even his feelings. But only if she concentrated enough, if she cared enough." Here she delicately shows the lives of two very tired people bound to each other by a force whose origin neither can remember.
She paints a poignant portrait of her country. Before we know it, we are smelling strong Cuban coffee, lilac perfume, and feeling the humid air cling to our skin. Her characters have a hard life from which they eek an unexpected joy.
Her book is a quilt that we are lucky to have been able to wrap ourselves in for a few brief hours. Reviewed by Julian Gabriel Colado, Editor, WriteToday.com
A Doorway to the Magical
"Dreams and Other Ailments is a doorway... to the magical, even fantastic, and yet it is grounded in a reality that has an edge. [It] takes the reader on journeys that transit between dimensions, juxtaposing the seen and the unseen, the mundane and the miraculous, the tragic and the hopeful, while maintaining a connection that runs like a line to her Cuban beginnings. Nonpolitical but with a message, irreligious yet full of spirit, the stories express themselves in many voices, conflating race, gender, age, rage, ecstasy, and resignation. Bevin's overriding mark of style is her humor that twists each character's fate with ironic promise... An inspiration, an education, and a chance to enter multiple realities, Dreams and Other Ailments will lift your spirits as it makes you wonder if the spirits being lifted are other than your own. An important collection by a brilliant new writer."
--Dr. Lynne Greeley, author, literary critic, and professor of theater, University of Vermont
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