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Officiële naam: Treviño, Mary Elizabeth Victoria Borton de
Pseudoniemen en naamsvarianten: Borton, Mary Elizabeth (birth)
Geboortedatum: 1904-09-02
Overlijdensdatum: 2001-12-02
Graflocatie: Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico
Geslacht: female
Nationaliteit: USA
Geboorteplaats: Bakersfield, California, USA
Plaats van overlijden: Cuernavaca, Mexico
Woonplaatsen: Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico
Opleiding: Stanford University (BA|Latin American History|1925)
Boston Conservatory of Music
Beroepen: journalist
novelist
poet
memoirist
Organisaties: Boston Herald
Prijzen en onderscheidingen: Phi Beta Kappa
Korte biografie: Elizabeth Borton knew she wanted to be a writer from childhood. She had her first success at age eight, when a local paper published one of her poems. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford, she went to Boston to study the violin, but soon was working as a reporter for The Boston Herald. In 1935 she married Luis Treviño Arreola y Gómez Sánchez de la Barquera and moved with him to Monterrey, Mexico. Her memoir My Heart Lies South (1953) became a bestseller and established her as a writer. She won a Newbery Medal in 1966 for I, Juan De Pareja.

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I, Juan de Pareja and Related Readings door Elizabeth Borton de Trevino

good - Michael

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hcs_admin | 15 andere besprekingen | Nov 1, 2023 |

I, Juan de Pareja door Elizabeth Borton De Trevino

Juan de Pareja, our narrator, was a slave in the service of the famous Spanish artist, Velasquez. Spanish slavery of the time was evidently quite different from the brutal slavery of the American South, that we are all familiar with. Juan de Pareja was well treated, and indeed, loved by his master and mistress, and he in turn loved them. This fact naturally gives the book an uncomfortable "Uncle Tom" or "Song of the South" flavor to the narration. We modern readers do not really want to hear about slaves loving their owners. However, this novel is based on history. Pareja, Velasquez, and a few other major characters, were all real people. De Trevino has taken the little that is known about them, and used fiction and imagination to fill in the huge gaps in our knowledge. So this is historical fiction - not a biography. But it was fascinating to read in the brief afterward which parts of the story were definitely true.
Juan secretly taught himself to paint, by watching his master for so many years. And a few of Juan de Pareja's paintings survive today and are displayed in museums in Europe. But it was illegal in Spain for a slave to practice the arts. The episode in the story in which both Velasquez and the King of Spain himself discover that the famous artist's slave has been illegally painting is the highlight of the book, and according the the author, this episode is known and based on fact.
Unusual for a middle grade novel in that the narrator, though his story begins in childhood, is an adult through most of the book. Not many books for this age focus the story on adults.… (meer)

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fingerpost | 15 andere besprekingen | Aug 14, 2021 |

Leona: A Love Story door Elizabeth Borton de Trevino

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pszolovits | Feb 3, 2021 |

Where the Heart is at Home in Mexico door Elizabeth Borton De Trevino

I loved every page of this well written book; the author writes her own life story. This reporter from California marries a Mexican man, has two sons and becomes as nearly Mexican as any American woman can. They live first in Monterrey and then move to San Angel, in Mexico City where the boys grow up. It is delightfully written and hard to put down once started. I highly recommend it!

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CatheyMerrill | Aug 31, 2020 |

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