Peron&Evita: Love Letters. The extraordinary story of Maria Eva Duarte de Perón, whose intense 33-year life became a universal myth. The career of Maria Eva Duarte de Perón is one of the most extraordinary stories ever told. This work, based on apocryphal correspondence, casts light on the subjective experience of the protagonists of one of the most intense love stories Argentina has ever known. Evita's death is most likely due to her refusal to accept medical treatment of any kind. Her catchphrase was “Doctors are for people who have nothing to do, not for me. Treatment is for oligarchs, for those who don't work. Can't you see that they want to invent illnesses in order to sabotage my administration?” exemplifies what the Greeks called “hubris” -the illness of power-, the essential ingredient for any tragedy. Evita's 33-year life has become a universal myth. This dramatic work of fiction spans the following stages of Evita's incredible life: Her birth as a natural daughter in the second family of a rancher in the Province of Buenos Aires. Her trip to Buenos Aires at the age of fifteen and her lonely time in the big city. Eking out an existence as a courtesan and theater and radio actress. Birth and adoption of her daughter Marriage to Colonel Perón. The President's wife and first lady of the Nation. Her trip to Europe. Eva is transformed into Evita during her work with the Foundation. Illness, operations, lies and death. Embalmment of Evita's body. Disappearance and return of the embalmed body. Post mortem complaints about decisions made by the widower during his third administration. Buy this book for an intimate glimpse into the lives of two giants from Argentine history!

No Latin American woman has ever elicited such extreme feelings of love and hate as Eva Perón. She was an actress of humble origins who fell in love with and married the soon-to-be president of Argentina, Juan Domingo Perón. Evita, as she was fondly known, became the most powerful woman in Argentine history. Adored by the masses and loathed by the bourgeoisie, Evita polarized Argentine society. Not even her death could put an end to the mixed feelings she aroused during her lifetime, and Evita remains till this day a controversial figure. Eva Perón: A Reference Guide to Her Life and Works captures Evita’s eventful life, her works, and her legacy. The volume features a chronology that includes her childhood, her acting career, her trip to Europe, her political activity, her illness, and her death, as well as more recent events that have memorialized her. While an introduction offers a brief account of her life, a dictionary section lists entries on people, places, and events related to her. A comprehensive bibliography offers a list of works by and about Evita. Finally, a filmography includes the movies in which Evita appeared and the TV series and films that have been made about her.

This revelatory biography of Folies Bergere dancer Josephine Baker (1906-1975) is a study of struggle, truimph and tragedy.

In this dynamic collection of essays, many leading literary scholars trace gay and lesbian themes in Latin American, Hispanic, and U.S. Latino literary and cultural texts. Reading and Writing the Ambiente is consciously ambitious and far-ranging, historically as well as geographically. It includes discussions of texts from as early as the seventeenth century to writings of the late twentieth century. Reading and Writing the Ambiente also underscores the ways in which lesbian and gay self-representation in Hispanic texts differs from representations in Anglo-American texts. The contributors demonstrate that--unlike the emphasis on the individual in Anglo- American sexual identity--Latino, Spanish, and Latin American sexual identity is produced in the surrounding culture and community, in the ambiente. As one of the first collections of its kind, Reading and Writing the Ambiente is expressive of the next wave of gay Hispanic and Latin scholarship.

In collecting hundreds of letters to Juan and Eva by everyday people as well as from correspondence solicited by Juan Perón, this book promotes a view that charismatic bonds in Argentina have been formed as much by Argentines as by their leaders, demonstrating how letter writing at that time instilled a sense of nationalism and unity, particularly during the first Five Year Plan campaign conducted in 1946. It goes beyond the question of how charisma influenced elections and class affiliation to address broader implications. The letters offer a new methodology to study the formation of charisma in literate countries where not just propaganda and public media but also private correspondence defined and helped shape political polices. Focusing on the first era of Peronism, from 1946 to 1955, this work shows how President Perón and the First Lady created charismatic ways to link themselves to Argentine supporters through letter writing.

Based on twenty years of research and thousands of interviews, this authoritative biography of performer Josephine Baker (1906-1975) provides a candid look at her tempestuous life. Born into poverty in St. Louis, the uninhibited chorus girl became the sensation of Europe and the last century's first black sex symbol. A heroine of the French Resistance in World War II, she entranced figures as diverse as de Gaulle, Tito, Castro, Princess Grace, two popes, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Yet Josephine was also, as one critic put it, "a monster who made Joan Crawford look like the Virgin Mary." Jean-Claude Baker's book also reveals her outbursts that resulted in lasting feuds, her imperious treatment of family and entourage members, and her ambivalent attitudes concerning her ethnic background. Reconciling Josephine's many personas—Jazz-age icon, national hero of France, proponent of Civil Rights, mother of children from across the globe—Josephine: The Hungry Heart gives readers the inside story on a star unlike any other before or since.