Cuban-born biographer Alina Garcia-Lapuerta’s new book, La Belle Créole: The Cuban Countess Who Captivated Havana, Madrid, and Paris (Chicago Review Press, September 2014) is hosting a Meet & Greet event at Barnes & Noble on Tamiami Tr. on September 5, to talk about her research of the story of the adventurous woman nicknamed La Belle Créole –a Cuban-born aristocrat who was years ahead of her time as a writer, socialite, and political participant in the Cuban slavery debate and an important female figure who deserves a place in the canon of Latin American literature.
Publishers Weekly, is saying that “García-Lapuerta’s beautifully written account of La Belle Créole illuminates lesser-known aspects of 19th-century transatlantic culture and the roles powerful women were able to play in it. She captures the reader’s imagination with vivid details of Mercedes’s life in Cuba, Madrid, and Paris.” And Library Journal says “This work marks the first full-length English-language biography of the countess and draws upon her letters, memoirs, and contemporary news accounts to make a highly readable story. An influential biography that will captivate readers of all types.”
Curious to know more about this mysterious Cuban-born star of nineteenth-century Parisian society, García-Lapuertasearched for traces of Mercedes, and transformed her research into a full-blown pursuit around the globe, rummaging in archives and libraries in the US, Cuba, Spain, France and England. The final result of this quest is her book; the first full-length English-language biography of the Condesa de Merlin, La Belle Créole: The Cuban Countess Who Captivated Havana, Madrid, and Paris.
About the Author:
Alina García-Lapuerta, a native Spanish speaker, was born in Cuba. A graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, she is member of Biographers International Organization, The Biographers’ Club of London. Based in London with her Spanish-American husband and their two children, García-Lapuerta still spends considerable time in South Florida. Watch the book trailer and find out more, including tour dates, at AlinaGarciaLaPuerta.com.
Book Details:
La Belle Créole: The Cuban Countess Who Captivated Havana, Madrid, and Paris
by Alina García- Lapuerta | published by Chicago Review Press | distributed by IPG
Cloth | ISBN: 9781613745366 | 320 pages | 6 x 9 | $29.95 US ($35.95 CAN)
22 color photos | History/Biography
Chicago Review Press
http://www.chicagoreviewpress.com
