Tag Archives: Mountains

By Vladimir Brezina

Last week, the Daily Post’s Weekly Photo Challenge theme was Cover Art. How very timely!

Earlier this year, I was contacted by an author, Carmen de Monteflores, about using one of my photos on the cover of her forthcoming new book. And recently, a copy of the published book arrived in my mailbox. Thanks, Carmen!

¡Jíbara! by Carmen de Monteflores, AuthorHouse, August 2014

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Unfortunately, I haven’t yet had time to read ¡Jíbara! (which, despite its Spanish title, is written in English) thoroughly. But, skimming it, it looks to be very well written and promises to draw in anyone interested in Puerto Rican culture and history. Here’s a synopsis:

Carmen de Monteflores brings her intimate knowledge of Puerto Rican culture and history to this story of a rural mountain girl-a jibara-struggling to become a teacher during the turbulent changes of the 1930s in the island. After a devastating hurricane, Juanita and her mother, Cisa, to whom she is fiercely attached, are forced to move to San Juan to find work. Like many others arriving from the country, they end up living in a slum. Unexpected circumstances introduce Juanita to Clara. They become close, but their lives take different paths. Juanita enters the university to be tested both by violent politics and her mother’s illness. Clara’s influential relatives introduce her to society life and her husband-to-be. Relationships become strained and lies and secrets explode when Juanita asks for help from a former teacher and from a close friend of Clara’s as Cisa gets sicker and Clara’s marriage collapses.

The finished book illustrates some of the perils of selecting photos for cover art. The book has a portrait format. But the original photo had a landscape format, and consequently most of it had to to be cropped away. And, inevitably, the colors came out differently on the printed cover. Oh well—I did get paid ;-)

Here’s the whole original photo:

More photos from that day in October 2001, high up in the Cordillera Central of Puerto Rico, are here.