Two years after her father's brutal murder, Veronica returns to Guatemala to decide whether to sell her family's coffee farm. Stumbling upon the journal from her teenage years, she recalls crucial events from the past, in particular the arrival of her younger, illegitimate half-brother. This trauma changes her, and forever links her family to Jaime, the man who later becomes the town's corrupt mayor. Born into the lower class and yearning for respectability, Jaime turned to illegal activities to break the inevitable cycle of poverty. Now he is determined to have Veronica's farm by any means possible. During the years she lived away, memories of her country faded: the haunting landscapes, the beauty of the coffee farm, traditions, and faith. Upon returning she discovers — despite corruption, violence, and organized crime — a sense of belonging not experienced elsewhere. The country casts its spell on her and she realizes that Mayor Jaime, the villain she thought threatened her, is just a man shaped by the unforgiving nature of Guatemalan society.

Maryse Condé's personal journey of discovery and revelation becomes ours as we learn of Victoire, her white-skinned mestiza grandmother who worked as a cook for the Walbergs, a family of white Creoles, in the French Antilles. Using her formidable skills as a storyteller, Condé describes her grandmother as having "Australian whiteness for the color of her skin...She jarred with my world of women in Italian straw bonnets and men necktied in three-piece linen suits, all of them a very black shade of black. She appeared to me doubly strange." Victoire was spurred by Condé's desire to learn of her family history, resolving to begin her quest by researching the life of her grandmother. While uncovering the circumstances of Victoire's unique life story, Condé also comes to grips with a haunting question: How could her own mother, a black militant, have been raised in the Walberg's home, a household of whites? Creating a work that takes readers into a time and place populated with unforgettable characters that inspire and amaze, Condé's blending of memoir and imagination, detective work and storytelling artistry, is a literary gem that readers won't soon forget.

The winner of the prestigious 2008 Biblioteca Breve Prize—joining such renowned Latin American luminaries as Mario Vargas Llosa and Carlos Fuentes—acclaimed poet and novelist Gioconda Belli's Infinity in the Palm of Her Hand is a wholly creative and original re-imagining of the story of Adam and Eve and original sin. In a brilliant translation by Margaret Sayers Peyden, this remarkable new look at the Book of Genesis will appeal to readers of the novels of Isabel Allende, Anne Rice's Jesus Chronicles, and to all lovers of great imaginative literature.