Land of Women - by María Sánchez (Paperback)

About the Book

"Marâia Sâanchez is obsessed with what she cannot see. As a field veterinarian following in the footsteps of generations before her, she travels the countryside of Spain bearing witness to a life eroding before her eyes-words, practices, and people slipping away because of depopulation, exploitation of natural resources, inadequate environmental policies, and development encroaching on farmland and villages. Sâanchez, the first woman in her family to dedicate herself to what has traditionally been a male-dominated profession, rebuffs the bucolic narrative of rural life often written by-and for consumption by-people in cities, describing the multilayered social complexity of people who are proud, resilient, and often misunderstood. Sâanchez interweaves family stories of three generations with reflections on science and literature. She focuses especially on the often dismissed and undervalued generations of women who have forgone education and independence to work the land and tend to family. In doing so, she asks difficult questions about gender equity and labor. Part memoir and part rural feminist manifesto, Land of Women acknowledges the sacrifices of Sâanchez's female ancestors who enabled her to become the woman she is. A bestseller in Spain, Land of Women promises to ignite conversations about the treatment and perception of rural communities everywhere"--

Book Synopsis

A bestseller memoir in Spain that calls us to reexamine how we view women and rural life

Review Quotes

Praise for Land of Women

"A passionate and touching book...Land of Women may be a small book, but it is mighty. It gives a voice to rural women and speaks truths long hidden." - Christian Science Monitor

"Sáaacute;nchez's prose is both lyrical and nebulous, resulting in a deep, personal cultural history that digs into areas not often discussed...a moving feminist account of women's historical roles in rural communities." -- Foreword Reviews

"Writer and veterinarian Maríiacute;a Sánchez celebrates the women of her world, quiet workers of an ultrapatriarchal campaign. As indispensable as they are invisible. As omnipresent as they are silent. In this feminist and poetic manifesto, Sánchez draws on her own history to measure how much the earth is also a woman's affair." -- Le Monde

"This book does not talk about the women who will fill the city streets. It speaks of a rural feminism . . . that remembers the strong and wise women who worked the land without raising their voices."​ ― Time Out

"Narrated with agility, lucidity, forcefulness, and tenderness. There is knowledge, pride, vitality, and fantastic energy in this memoir about the women who, against the tide of history, didn't leave their family homes or their land, the ones who stayed with their men (or without them) in the rural area, the ones who resisted the exodus to the cities."​ -- El País​

"Land of Women is a beautiful tribute to the genealogy of women who came before, women with hands that molded the earth and who were part of the earth."​ -- El Heraldo de Aragóoacute;n

"María Sánchez asks us to consider the silent contribution of women in rural areas free from nostalgia, bucolic sentiments, and prejudice."​ -- El Mundo

"María Sánchez recovers the trace of the women in her life--in her learning, in the field, and in the home. As with the feminist movement, she turns our attention to that which was invisible to us until now."​ -- Zenda

"Land of Women launches a harangue against urban snobbery: no more stigmatizing the people of the countryside and ignoring their workers."​ ― Eldiario

"Sánchez's ferocity echoes Elena Ferrante."​ -- Aysmptote

"An expression of intimate and familiar memory endowed with a great poetic strength."​ -- ABC Sevilla

"An essential [book] that focuses on the compelling need to expand feminist discourse so that it affects not only women in big cities but also those in rural areas. It deserves to be read by everyone. After all, there's still soil under the concrete."​ ― La Vanguardia

"With Land of Women, María Sánchez has become an essential writer to read."​ -- El Cultural

"Faced with a feminism that is highlighted through social media, María Sánchez knows that outside the cities, agriculture is an assumption without consideration. She gives feminist voice to the field."​ -- El Cultural

Land of Women urges us to reconnect with the rural world, especially its women, and to tell our stories free of shame."​ -- ABC Cultura

"An epic

About the Author

Curtis Bauer is an American writer and translator. He is the author of three poetry collections, most recently American Selfie. He has translated poetry and prose from Spanish for Fabio Morábito, Luis Muñoz, Juan Antonio González Iglesias, and Jeannette L. Clariond, including Image of Absence, which received the 2020 International Latino Book Award for the Best Nonfiction Book Translation from Spanish to English. Bauer is the publisher and editor of Q Avenue Press Chapbooks and translations editor for The Common. He teaches comparative literature and creative writing at Texas Tech University in Lubbock.