Our Lady of the Artichokes and Other Portuguese-American Stories
Katherine Vaz
(Author)
21,000+ Reviews
Bookshop.org has the highest-rated customer service of any bookstore in the world
Description
The stories in this prize-winning collection evoke a complete world, one so richly imagined and finely realized that the stories themselves are not so much read as experienced. The world of these stories is Portuguese-American, redolent of incense and spices, resonant with ritual and prayer, immersed in the California culture of freeway and commerce. Packed with lyrical prose and vivid detail, acclaimed writer Katherine Vaz conjures a captivating blend of Old World heritage and New World culture to explore the links between families, friends, strangers, and their world. From the threat of a serial killer as the background for a young girl's first brush with death to the fallout of a modern-day visitation from the Virgin Mary; from an AIDS-stricken squatter refusing to vacate an empty Lisbon home to a mother's yearlong struggle with the death of her synesthetic daughter, these deft stories make their world ours.
Product Details
Price
$17.95
$16.69
Publisher
Bison Books
Publish Date
October 01, 2008
Pages
168
Dimensions
5.4 X 8.3 X 0.4 inches | 0.4 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9780803217904
BISAC Categories:
Earn by promoting books
Earn money by sharing your favorite books through our Affiliate program.
Become an affiliate
About the Author
Katherine Vaz is a Briggs-Copeland Fellow in fiction at Harvard University. She is the author of Saudade, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection; Mariana, available in six languages and selected by the Library of Congress as one of the Top 30 International Books of 1998; and Fado & Other Stories, winner of the 1997 Drue Heinz Literature Prize.
Reviews
"Katherine Vaz is the sort of fiction writer who makes me wonder why the rest of us even bother. . . . My favorite book of Vaz's is Our Lady of the Artichokes."--Tayari Jones, New York Times-- (2/6/2018 12:00:00 AM)
"In Katherine Vaz's new volume of short fiction, she demonstrates brilliantly that rare quality of truly fine writing--a deeply profound knowingness about the human condition. Our Lady of the Artichokes and Other Portuguese-American Stories will even more widely prove what is already clear to many: Katherine Vaz is a master of the short story."--Robert Olen Butler, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain-- (12/17/2007 12:00:00 AM)
"Katherine Vaz is an old-fashioned storyteller in the best sense. Her work is sensual, rich in detail and layered history. Her stories overflow with incident and feeling. Other writers present fruit plates. Vaz serves cornucopias."--Allegra Goodman, author of Intuition and Kaaterskill Falls-- (5/6/2008 12:00:00 AM)
"Vaz is a soulful writer who understands her protagonists' complex lives, as well as the way religious beliefs can assert themselves most powerfully after leaving native soil."--Publishers Weekly-- (8/11/2008 12:00:00 AM)
"This slim, sophisticated story collection demonstrates Vaz's many enviable skills. Several stories rely on a unifying theme, such as dealing with fear or coping with loss. But instead of being structured on an arc of conflict, climax and resolution, these cerebral pieces demand that readers assemble the pictures for themselves."--SFGate.com-- (10/12/2008 12:00:00 AM)
"One comes away from these stories believing that it is possible to bargain with, sacrifice to, confront, divert, and even overcome adversity. In this wonderful collection, Vaz gives us characters who delight in the marvelous, which lurks, often undetected, just beneath the surface of our ordinary lives."--Joyce Wilson, Harvard Review
"Vaz writes with quiet ease and skill--and her explorations of lives absent of grace are subtle and worth reading."--B. J. Hollars, Pleiades
"In Katherine Vaz's new volume of short fiction, she demonstrates brilliantly that rare quality of truly fine writing--a deeply profound knowingness about the human condition. Our Lady of the Artichokes and Other Portuguese-American Stories will even more widely prove what is already clear to many: Katherine Vaz is a master of the short story."--Robert Olen Butler, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain-- (12/17/2007 12:00:00 AM)
"Katherine Vaz is an old-fashioned storyteller in the best sense. Her work is sensual, rich in detail and layered history. Her stories overflow with incident and feeling. Other writers present fruit plates. Vaz serves cornucopias."--Allegra Goodman, author of Intuition and Kaaterskill Falls-- (5/6/2008 12:00:00 AM)
"Vaz is a soulful writer who understands her protagonists' complex lives, as well as the way religious beliefs can assert themselves most powerfully after leaving native soil."--Publishers Weekly-- (8/11/2008 12:00:00 AM)
"This slim, sophisticated story collection demonstrates Vaz's many enviable skills. Several stories rely on a unifying theme, such as dealing with fear or coping with loss. But instead of being structured on an arc of conflict, climax and resolution, these cerebral pieces demand that readers assemble the pictures for themselves."--SFGate.com-- (10/12/2008 12:00:00 AM)
"One comes away from these stories believing that it is possible to bargain with, sacrifice to, confront, divert, and even overcome adversity. In this wonderful collection, Vaz gives us characters who delight in the marvelous, which lurks, often undetected, just beneath the surface of our ordinary lives."--Joyce Wilson, Harvard Review
"Vaz writes with quiet ease and skill--and her explorations of lives absent of grace are subtle and worth reading."--B. J. Hollars, Pleiades
![The Bean Book: 100 Recipes for Cooking with All Kinds of Beans, from the Rancho Gordo Kitchen [A Cookbook]](https://images-us.bookshop.org/ingram/9781984860002.jpg?height=250&v=v2-7400cb3badc696c5c26291bab7b06b47)
