Image 1 of 1
Women Surrounded by Water (Signed & Personalized Copy)
Get your own signed copy of Women Surrounded by Water. Each book is hand-signed and customized with the name you provide at checkout. It includes shipping within the continental U.S. and Puerto Rico.
Longlisted for the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award in Autobiography
Patricia Coral interviewed in Southern Review of Books
Read an excerpt of Women Surrounded by Water in Electric Literature
Listen to Patricia Coral read from Women Surrounded by Water in Poets & Writers
Patricia Coral reads from Women Surrounded by Water in Debutiful
Watch Patricia Coral’s book talk and reading at Politics and Prose
“Poetic, intelligent, formally and culturally hybrid, and emotionally powerful, Women Surrounded by Water offers an important meditation on gender, family, imperialism, and natural disasters, amplified by factors like anthropogenic climate change and official indifference. It also introduces into the creative nonfiction genre an eloquent, sensitive, and talented new voice.” —Glen Retief, River Teeth
Growing up in Puerto Rico, Patricia Coral was surrounded by women who fought for their needs amid the demands of domesticity and who were dismissed and judged when they rejected any predetermined paths on an island that itself has never been free. At age twenty-five, she married her first love, a green-eyed musician whose internal storms drove Coral to slowly realize that the marriage must end. Faced with disillusionment—with her husband, with the patriarchal expectations that surrounded her like the Caribbean Sea, and with the limited options available to her—she leaves, only for Hurricane Maria to wrench her heart homeward.
Coral evokes the beauty, love, and language of her family and of Puerto Rico as well as the pain of yearning for more. Tastes, colors, and the dreamlike lushness of childhood memories infuse this mournful and propulsive memoir of personal and natural disasters—and the self-discovery made possible only when we choose what to leave behind.
Get your own signed copy of Women Surrounded by Water. Each book is hand-signed and customized with the name you provide at checkout. It includes shipping within the continental U.S. and Puerto Rico.
Longlisted for the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award in Autobiography
Patricia Coral interviewed in Southern Review of Books
Read an excerpt of Women Surrounded by Water in Electric Literature
Listen to Patricia Coral read from Women Surrounded by Water in Poets & Writers
Patricia Coral reads from Women Surrounded by Water in Debutiful
Watch Patricia Coral’s book talk and reading at Politics and Prose
“Poetic, intelligent, formally and culturally hybrid, and emotionally powerful, Women Surrounded by Water offers an important meditation on gender, family, imperialism, and natural disasters, amplified by factors like anthropogenic climate change and official indifference. It also introduces into the creative nonfiction genre an eloquent, sensitive, and talented new voice.” —Glen Retief, River Teeth
Growing up in Puerto Rico, Patricia Coral was surrounded by women who fought for their needs amid the demands of domesticity and who were dismissed and judged when they rejected any predetermined paths on an island that itself has never been free. At age twenty-five, she married her first love, a green-eyed musician whose internal storms drove Coral to slowly realize that the marriage must end. Faced with disillusionment—with her husband, with the patriarchal expectations that surrounded her like the Caribbean Sea, and with the limited options available to her—she leaves, only for Hurricane Maria to wrench her heart homeward.
Coral evokes the beauty, love, and language of her family and of Puerto Rico as well as the pain of yearning for more. Tastes, colors, and the dreamlike lushness of childhood memories infuse this mournful and propulsive memoir of personal and natural disasters—and the self-discovery made possible only when we choose what to leave behind.