Stones for Ibarra

By Harriet Doerr,

Book cover of Stones for Ibarra

Book description

Winner of the National Book Award for First Work of Fiction

"A very good novel indeed, with echoes of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Katherine Anne Porter, and even Graham Greene."--The New York Times

Richard and Sara Everton, just over and just under forty, have come to the small Mexican village of…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Stones for Ibarra as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I love this book’s restrained, atmospheric description of the experiences of a North American couple re-opening an abandoned copper mine in Mexico in the middle of the 20th century. It is Doerr’s first book, which she wrote in her mid-70s, based on experiences with her husband earlier in her life.

Her spare, evocative writing style gives a vivid sense of place and of human relationships between the foreign managers and the villagers, creating a sense of tenuous but real connection across wide divisions of language, race, class, education, and religion. 

From Elizabeth's list on about mining's effects on communities.

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