description: Bitter Grounds , Sandra Benitez's American Book Award-winning novel, chronicles the lives of three generations of women in war-torn El Salvador. After losing most of their family during the massacres of 1932, Mercedes Prietas and her daughter Jacinta go to work for Elena de Contreras and her family, who own enormous coffee and cotton plantations. During the next 40 years, the women of both families help each other endure the many hardships that come their way. Benitez manages to portray both the poor and the rich women in this book as complex, sympathetic characters. Like the heroines of Los dos , their favorite radio soap opera, the women in this novel suffer heartache, unrequited love, betrayal, and the loss of loved ones. One by one, all of Jacinta's family members are killed amid the country's political turmoil. Elena's heart breaks when she discovers her best friend in bed with her husband on the eve of their daughter's marriage. The Contreras family struggles to retain control of its land during the late 1970s government-mandated redistribution of wealth. Through it all, the women sustain each other, even after circumstances separate "Sometimes, late at night or, most often, very early in the morning, when Jacinta lay in her cot in the little room she shared with Rosalba, her mother stirred within her. This was not craziness, but a consolation. To feel her mother's flesh, her bulk, shored up along the banks of her own bones and flesh." Bitter Grounds is a thoughtful, vivid account of the lives of some very resilient women.
language: English
title: Bitter Grounds: Picador USA Reading Group Guides
titlecomplete: Bitter Grounds: Picador USA Reading Group Guides
genres: Latin American Literature, Latin American, Novels, Family, Historical Fiction, 20th Century, Contemporary, Literature, Fiction, Womens
ratings_count: 949
places: El Salvador
awards: awardedAt: 883641600000
name: Orange Prize
category: Fiction Longlist, awardedAt: 883641600000
name: American Book Award
publisher: Picador USA