Product Description

On an outing from her boarding school, young Lucía meets Manuel—art historian and exquisite storyteller—who shares with her the tale of one of history's most tumultuous loves: Queen Juana of Castile's legendary devotion to her husband, Prince Philippe the Handsome. Embracing a union thrust upon her by political necessity, Juana responds with all the passionate abandon inherent in her fiery nature—and is forced to pay a high price for her honest sensuality. For there are those at the Renaissance court who will not allow such unabashed independence in the heir to one of the world's most powerful empires—and they declare Juana mad, denying her ascension to the throne. But is she truly insane, or is she merely a victim of her own impetuosity and unbridled desire? Or is Juana a pawn in a fierce power struggle for control of the throne?

Lucía attends raptly to the tale Manuel relates—and their own story begins to miraculously, dangerously mirror that of Juana the Mad and her beloved prince.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #545493 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-01
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 1.09" h x 5.56" w x 8.02" l, .64 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

From Publishers Weekly
How crazy was Juana La Loca, the Spanish queen who allegedly would not stop kissing her husband, Philippe the Handsome, even after he died? A Madrid professor enlists the help of a student and a silk dress to find out in the latest from Nicaraguan poet-memoirist-novelist Belli (The Country Under My Skin). While touring the Escorial, 17-year-old Lucia, a Latin American–born orphan attending a Madrid Catholic boarding school, meets Manuel, a 40-something professor who draws Lucia into his obsession with 16th-century Juana. Soon, Manuel dresses Lucia like Juana, and, as he seduces (and eventually impregnates) her, she channels Juana's spirit, allowing Belli to create—in sensuous detail—a turbulent, emotion-driven version of events that is at odds with historians' accounts of Juana's schizophrenia. Juana, as Belli depicts her, was a passionate woman who fell victim to power-hungry relatives, and whose eccentric behavior may have been symptoms of bipolar disorder. (As Belli explains in an author's note, "any woman with a strong sense of self, confronted by the abuse and the arbitrary injustices she had to withstand, forced to accept her powerlessness in the face of an authoritarian system, would become depressed.") Belli's insights into Spanish culture prove provocative, aided by Dillman's faultless translation. (Sept.)
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From Booklist
Belli's rigorously imagined and sumptuously presented novel is a dual story of obsessive love, with a bi-level plot alternating between past and present. From the past, the author retrieves the almost legendary tale of Queen Juana of Castile, eldest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, and her alleged madness caused by the premature death of her handsome husband, Philip of Hapsburg. The contemporary story line is also set in Spain; over a period of time and in piecemeal fashion, a teenage student in a convent school, Lucia by name, learns from a college professor, who will become her first lover, of his own obsession: Queen Juana and her life story, specifically the unanswerable question of whether she was insane or simply the victim of a smear campaign by the male forces at court who would seek to control her. The professor, as if Scheherazade, tells Lucia a series of episodes concerning the tragic queen so Lucia may internalize Juana's plight, all the while executing his seduction of her. Male manipulation of the female, as we see, is hardly a thing of the past. A balance between the two time levels is carefully maintained, the contemporary story intensifying the viability of the characters from the past--all this carried along, as if down a lovely stream, by the sheer beauty of the author's prose style. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
“…a fascinating account… richly told...a feel similar to Tracy Chevalier’s Girl with a Pearl Earring.” (Library Journal )

“…rigorously imagined and sumptuously presented…” (Booklist )

“…A fascinating account… richly told...a feel similar to Tracy Chevalier’s Girl with a Pearl Earring.” (Library Journal )

“Unravels [the] contradictions. . .all too common among powerful women–with characteristic candor and dignity. . .Often joyous, surprisingly fluid.” (Salon )

“Belli recalls with engaging candor the course of a life lived to the full. In its twist and turns, moments of danger followed by intense romantic encounters, Belli’s memoir can resemble exuberant historical fiction. . A luminously written, always insightful account of one woman’s encounter with personal and political liberation.” (Kirkus Reviews )

“A tribute to beauty, valor, and justice. Belli’s giving and clarion book is also an antidote to fear and apathy, and a reminder that freedom is always a work in progress.” (Booklist )

Praise for THE COUNTRY UNDER MY SKIN (: )

“Romantic and engaging.” (Philadelphia City Paper )

“Engaging. . .When Belli speaks from the depths of her woman’s insight. . . her prose pierces the heart. . .A window to one woman’s extraordinary journey.” (San Antonio Express-News )

Praise for SCROLL OF SEDUCTION (Praise for SCROLL OF SEDUCTION )

“A lush memoir.…both intensely personal and informatively political.…An honest, insider’s account of the very real debates surrounding this major revolution would be valuable in itself, but Belli offers more: a frank examination of her struggle for love.” (Publishers Weekly )

“The Scroll of Seduction engages the reader on multiple levels…an intelligent work of fiction.” (Daily News )

“In Belli’s story-within-a-story, expertly translated by Lisa Dillman, a historian uses Juana’s saga to seduce a 16 year old orphan at a Madrid boarding school...the novel gallops along. A-” (Entertainment Weekly )

“Exceedingly clever and powerful, this passion-filled mystery of love and jealousy, of beauty and madness, unravels as the suspense builds to a page-turning frenzy that leaves us wanting to keep reading beyond the back cover.” (María Amparo Escandón, author of Esperanza’s Box of Saints and González & Daughter Trucking Co. )

“Lush...Belli’s rich prose provides fascinating insight into Juana’s life...” (Tu Vida Magazine )

“A poetic, penetrating and revelatory tale of love and war, literature and politics. . .lyrical, dramatic and incisive, Belli’s soulful self-portrait and paean to her beautiful, beleagured country is at once timely and timeless, tragic and life-affirming.” (The Chicago Tribune )

“A surprisingly frank picture of the movement. . .Belli presents a complex picture, revealing the ego clashes and massive blunders as well as moments of incredible bravery under fire.” (Los Angeles Magazine )

“Love and revolution have rarely been so splendidly and provocatively intertwined than in this heretic memoir of a woman’s sensual and intellectual voyage of self-discovery in Nicaragua.” (Ariel Dorfman )

“Gioconda Belli’s memoir reads better than a novel. It recounts her larger-than-life experiences as a revolutionary, lover, and mother with honesty, passion, intelligence and, above all, poetry. The Country Under My Skin is as much the story of Nicaragua as it is one extraordinary woman’s dreams.” (Cristina Garcia )

“…A lush novel that draws in equal measure on history and human passion, The Scroll of Seduction bears a passing resemblance to Jane Eyre, Like Water for Chocolate and The Historian.” (Los Angeles Times )