Thursday, April 1, 2010

The Firefly Letters by Margarita Engle


The Firefly Letters
Henry Holt and Company, LLC
March 2010
151 pgs.

Summary

This novel is written in verse. It is based on the diaries and letters of Swedish suffragist Fredrika Bremer. She spent three months in Cuba in 1851. The story is told in three alternating free-verse narratives. Fredrika remembers her oppressed childhood in Sweden. Cecilia, a teenage slave, recounts being captured in the Congo at age eight. Elena belongs to a slave-owning family.