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Luisa de la Cueva was born on the Caribbean island of Malagita, of a plantation owner's son and a native woman, a servant in the kitchen. Her years on Malagita were sweet with the beauty of bamboo, banana, and mango trees with flocks of silver-feathered guinea hens underneath, the magic of a victrola, and the caramel flan that Mama sneaked home from the plantation kitchen. Luisa's father, fearing revolution, takes his family to New York. In the barrio his once-powerful name means nothing, and the family establishes itself in a basement tenement. For Luisa, Malagita becomes a dream. Luisa does not dream of going to college, as her friend Ellen does, or of winning the lottery, as her father does. She takes a job as a servant and, paradoxically, grows more independent. She marries and later raises a son alone. She works as a servant all her life. A Servant's Tale is the story of a life that is simple on the surface but full of depth and richness as we come to know it, a story told with consummate grace and compassion by Paula Fox.… (more)
Romanzo assai caro all'autrice, che ha tratto ispirazione dalle memorie della propria infanzia a Cuba, "Storia di una serva" narra il sogno di una donna in lotta con la miseria, costretta a lavorare come domestica inseguendo il sogno di far ritorno alla sua amata isola di origine, San Pedro nei Caraibi. Un'isola ben lontana dalle immagini patinate del turismo del nostro tempo, dove la gente vive tra canne da zucchero e guayaba selvatica, in capanne prive di ogni comodità. Eppure per la protagonista il ritorno alla terra di origine è simbolo di libertà, perchè fuggire dal grigiore e dalle contraddizioni della società newyorchese, spietata e indifferente al disagio umano, è più importante del sogno di emancipazione. ( )
It is true that children pick up coarse expressions and bad manners in the company of servants; but in the drawing room, they learn coarse ideas and bad feelings. Aleksandr I. Herzen
One foot in Eden still, I stand And look across the other land. Edwin Muir
Dedication
To James Harvey, Sheila Gordon and Robert Lescher
First words
"Ruina! Ruina!" my grandfather, Isidro Sanchez, had scrawled at the end of his farewell note to my grandmother, which, she recounted, in a voice still astonished after all the passing years, he had written only an arm's length from where she sat mending a tear in the shirt he was to wear the next morning when she had been summoned to see Antonio de la Cueva, the proprietor of the sugar plantation of Malagita, to answer, among other serious questions, why he had not fulfilled his cane quota and therefore could not guarantee his rent for the coming year.
Luisa de la Cueva was born on the Caribbean island of Malagita, of a plantation owner's son and a native woman, a servant in the kitchen. Her years on Malagita were sweet with the beauty of bamboo, banana, and mango trees with flocks of silver-feathered guinea hens underneath, the magic of a victrola, and the caramel flan that Mama sneaked home from the plantation kitchen. Luisa's father, fearing revolution, takes his family to New York. In the barrio his once-powerful name means nothing, and the family establishes itself in a basement tenement. For Luisa, Malagita becomes a dream. Luisa does not dream of going to college, as her friend Ellen does, or of winning the lottery, as her father does. She takes a job as a servant and, paradoxically, grows more independent. She marries and later raises a son alone. She works as a servant all her life. A Servant's Tale is the story of a life that is simple on the surface but full of depth and richness as we come to know it, a story told with consummate grace and compassion by Paula Fox.
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