When a poet moves into the apartment above hers, young Juliana asks to meet her and together they write poems of tropical birds and a river that flows to the sea, typing out words that change the world, if only for a while.
Judith Ortiz Cofer Book order
Judith Ortiz Cofer's writing delves into the complex negotiation of identity between American and Puerto Rican cultures. Her narratives, deeply influenced by oral storytelling traditions and the example of her grandmother, often explore themes of racism, sexism, and the challenges faced by diasporic immigrants. She crafts her sensibilities as a writer through this multicultural lens and her approach to life. Her works, spanning poetry, short stories, and essays, offer profound insights into identity and cultural negotiation.
- 2012
- 1989
The Line of the Sun
- 304 pages
- 11 hours of reading
Set in the 1950s and 1960s, The Line of the Sun moves from a rural Puerto Rican village to a tough immigrant housing project in New Jersey, telling the story of a Hispanic family's struggle to become part of a new culture without relinquishing the old. At the story's center is Guzmán, an almost mythic figure whose adventures and exile, salvation and return leave him a broken man but preserve his place in the heart and imagination of his niece, who is his secret biographer.
