Latina Icons: Iconos Femeninos Latinos e hispanoamericanos. By María Claudia André.

Latina Icons: Iconos Femeninos Latinos e hispanoamericanos. By María Claudia André.  La Mujer Latina Series. ISBN: 978-0-915745-85-2. $17.95

 This book brings the most prominent Latino icons, popular female figures, and offers the most important and clear description of the process of iconization of the most cherished Latin American women. This book attempts to define and provide meaning to these popular women within the context of popular symbols and the function these women played in the construction of their individual and collective identity. These articles, written by well-known Latin Americanists, many of them Latinas themselves, reflect a most revealing landscape of iconization of these Latinas ranging from religious, political, and popular articulation. These images help us understand the complex discursive process of the creation of popular images, and the influence that institutions and cultural traditions play in their creation. La Malinche, the movie actress Maria Felix, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Maria Ilonza, Frida Khalo, Selena, Yemayá, Carmen Miranda, and Malena, the woman object of the most notable Tango, are among the figures discussed in this extraordinary book.

Esta colección de ensayos explora los procesos de representación y de iconización de algunas de las figuras femeninas más prominentes de América Latina. En ella se intenta definir qué significado tienen estas figuras dentro del contexto popular y determinar cuál es la función que desempeñan en la construcción de una identidad colectiva e individual. Los ensayos aquí incluidos presentan un revelador panorama sobre las múltiples articulaciones entre lo religioso, lo político y lo popular que nos permite vislumbrar no sólo la compleja red discursiva que circula a través de los diversos medios de producción cultural, sino también establecer el nivel de participación e influencia que ejercen de los organismos institucionales en la construcción de símbolos, imágenes y tradiciones culturales. La Malinche, la actriz del cine Maria Félix, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, María Ilonza, Frida Khalo, Selena, Yamayá, Carmen Miranda, y Malena, la mujer centro del tango mas famoso escrito, son las figuras femeninas aquí discutidas extensivamente en este extraordinario libro.

María Claudia André (Claudine) is a Professor of Hispanic American Literature and Latin American studies at Hope College, Holland, Michigan. A member of the Hope faculty since 1994, André specializes in Hispanic American literature and Latin American studies in her teaching at the college. She has presented papers at national and international conferences and published articles in several literary journals, and is the author or editor of several books, including “Latin American Women Writers: An Encyclopedia,” published in 2008. She holds her undergraduate degree from the Universidad del Salvador in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and her doctorate from the State University of New York at Albany. 

 She holds a B.A. in Translation and Interpretation from the Universidad del Salvador (Buenos Aires, Argentina) and a Ph.D. in Latin American and Spanish literature from the SUNY Albany, NY (1995). She has presented papers at national and international conferences and published articles in several literary journals. She is the editor Chicanas and Latin American Women Writers: Exploring the Realm of the Kitchen as a Self-Empowering Site (Edwin Mellen Press, 2001), Antología de Escritoras Argentinas Contemporáneas (Editorial Biblos, Buenos Aires), co-editor of Entre mujeres: colaboraciones, influencias e intertextualidades en la literatura y el arte latinoamericano (Red internacional del libro, Santiago de Chile, 2004), editor of Iconos femeninos latinos e hispanoamericanos. (Floricanto Press, 2006), editor and translator of Seven Plays by Argentine Playwright Susana Torres Molina (Edwin Mellen Press, 2007), co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Latin American Women Writers (Routledge, 2008), co-editor of En esa habitacion propia (Sirpus, 2010), and Dramaturgas argentinas de los an~os 29 (Editorial Nueva Generación, 2010).