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Podcast: Art Works Podcast
Episode: Marisel Vera
Description: With her second novel The Taste of Sugar, Marisel Vera has created an epic tale with an intimate heart. Her two protagonists Valentina and Vicente are small coffee farmers in late 19th century Puerto Rico whose lives had been shaped by Spanish colonialism. Then in 1898, Puerto Rico was invaded by the United States which assumed control of the island, devaluing the peso and levying property taxes. This was followed in 1899 by the devastating hurricane San Ciriaco which left thousands dead and a quarter of a million people without food and shelter. Losing their farm to these “twin catastrophes,” Vicente and Va...