Of Women and Salt

Books

From nineteenth-century cigar factories to present-day detention centres, from Cuba to the United States to Mexico, Gabriela Garcia's Of Women and Salt follows Latina women of fierce pride, bound by the stories passed between them. 'Vivid details, visceral prose and strong willful women' - Angie Cruz, author of Dominicana Five generations of women are linked by blood and circumstance, by the secrets they share, and by a single book passed down through a family, with an affirmation scrawled in its margins: 'We are force. We are more than we think we are.' 1866, Cuba: María Isabel is the only woman employed at a cigar factory. These are dangerous political times, and as María begins to see marriage and motherhood as her only options, the sounds of war are approaching. 1959, Cuba: Dolores watches her husband make for the mountains in answer to Fidel Castro's call to arms. What Dolores knows, though, is that to survive, she must win her own war, and commit an act of violence that threatens to destroy her ...