The Book of Emma Reyes: A Memoir in Correspondence
Emma Reyes
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In this startlingly original memoir, composed of twenty-three letters written over the course of thirty years, Emma Reyes describes in vivid, painterly detail the remarkable courage and limitless imagination of a young girl growing up with nothing. Hailed as an instant classic when first published in Colombia in 2012, nine years after the death of its author, the portrait that emerges from this clear-eyed account inspires awe at the stunning early life of a gifted writer and artist who was encouraged in her writing by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but whose talent remained hidden for far too long.
Read MorePraise for The Book of Emma Reyes
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The moment I finished this memoir I read it again - one simply can't abandon Emma. And I've been speculating ever since about how she made it once she'd escaped her terrible childhood. One is deeply grateful to know as a fact - an almost inconceivable fact - that she triumphed, but longs to know how. No other book I've ever read has left me so deeply involved with its author, and so grateful for that involvementUnadulteratedly good, interesting and important. Emma's letters remind me what reading and writing are forA jewel of a book. Emma is a mesmerising storyteller and her letters had me completely gripped from beginning to endWhat an astonishing book - I read it in a single gulp. Emma Reyes had a childhood of staggering deprivation but her humour and resilience shine through, and suddenly we have a modern classicAs poetic as it is horrific. The young Emma injects magic into the realism and vice versa - not for nothing is Reyes a compatriot of Marquez . . . an act of freedom both intimate and epic - OBSERVER
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