In the land of God and man : a Latin woman's journey / Silvana Paternostro

A Plume book.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [315]-326) and index.

When Silvana Paternostro went to Brazil in 1993 to research a report on women and AIDS in Latin America, she was confronted with the startling fact that married, monogamous women in the region were at much greater risk of being HIV positive than female prostitutes. Interviewing a Columbian AIDS specialist, she learned that 80% of his female HIV patients were infected as a result of their husbands having unprotected sex with other men. The AIDS epidemic was exposing what Paternostro, a Colombian-born Latina, instinctively knew: that behind the silence, secrets, and feelings of guilt and shame accompanying sex in staunchly Catholic Latin America is a paradoxical reality where male bi-sexuality, prostitution, and transvestism are routine and accepted parts of life at every level of society.Layered with history, careful research, blistering social commentary, and the author's own vivid and candid anecdotes and impressions, In the Land of God and Man is a rich, compelling narrative account which represents a missing chapter in the annals of Latin American literature. Paternostro redraws the map of Latin America, extending its borders from Quito, Ecuador, to Queens, New York, and summons women out of the factories and favelas, the boardrooms and brothels, to tell their illuminating and alarming stories. ? This is the first major narrative nonfiction book about Latinas by a Latina ? Writers such as Julia Alvarez, Ana Castillo, and Christina Garcia have proven the size and strength of this readership.