Award-Winning Author Reyna Grande Visits East Coast

New York City's newly renovated Museo del Barrio, in collaboration with La Casa Azul Bookstore, will host an exciting literary event, featuring Reyna Grande (Across A Hundred Mountains, Atria 2006; Dancing with Butterflies, Atria, 2009) and Sergio Troncoso (The Last Tortilla, University of Arizona Press, 1999) this Saturday, November 7th, at 2pm. The award-winning authors will join together at the museum's new Café to engage in a lively dialogue about their works.

This is part of Reyna's national book tour in support of her latest novel, Dancing with Butterflies, which uses the alternating voices of four very different women in a Los Angeles dance company called Alegría to weave a story of friendship and love: Yesenia, who founded Alegría, finds herself unable to dance and seeks a miracle from a plastic surgeon in Tijuana. Elena, grief stricken by the death of her child and the end of her marriage, falls dangerously in love with one of her under-age students. Elena’s sister Adriana, wears the wounds of abandonment by a dysfunctional family and becomes unable to discern love from abuse. Soledad, the sweet-tempered illegal immigrant who designs costumes for Alegría, must make the dangerous journey north after she returns to Mexico to see her dying grandmother.

Reyna's follow up to her critically-acclaimed Across A Hundred Mountains received a starred review from Publisher's Weekly®, which proclaimed that the novel [was] "well worth the wait." Kirkus Reviews® agrees, and praises the "fierce humanity" of its characters. You may visit Atria's blog to learn more about Reyna and her work, and to read a conversation with the author. For a full list of the author's appearances, which on the East Coast also include a visit to Philadelphia today, visit the events page on her website. I hope to see you Saturday!