Jackie, I'd go straight to Klein's Cigarettes are Sublime and his treatment
of Carmen. Although it's not on you've grid, I'd also look at Svevo's,
Confessions of Zeno Marty Roth
 
  _____  

From: Alcohol and Drugs History Society [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Gretchen Pierce
Sent: Tuesday, October 27, 2009 3:43 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: novels about smoking
 
Hello Everyone, 

This a third-hand question that was on the Latin American History listserv.
I'm hoping someone here might have some good answers.

Thanks,
Gretchen

Hi,

I'm a Victorianist English graduate student  and I am very interested in
Latin America and the Caribbean during the 19th century in addition to
Europe.  I'm working on a project and I'm hoping that someone on the list
could help me locate some texts.  Any help would be wonderful.

Last semester, I did some work with 19th century European novels that have a
racially ambiguous, prominent female who smokes or handles tobacco (or
both).  I'm interested in the ways in which race (and perhaps especially
ambiguous race) is somehow linked to tobacco, and also the way race and
tobacco are linked to the commodification of these women. (In addition,
these women are usually "transgressive" women who often die at the end of
the novel).

Now, I'm trying to do a similar study, but of representations of smoking
women in *Latin America*  and/or the Caribbean.   I've been gearing my
search towards Cuba, but really any nation of origin would work.  I'm not
having much luck.

Any suggestions for texts to look at would be greatly appreciated. I'm
looking for any of the following:

- Latin American novels (from Cuba or somewhere else) from the 19th century
with a significant female character who smokes or handles tobacco.
-a 19th century Latin American artist (or several) who portrays women and
tobacco,
- cigar/tobacco art with women
-any thing else you could suggest.
-if you could suggest any novels with women who are deeply associated with
rum or some other means of smoking (marijuana, opium), that might work, too.
I'm looking in particular for tobacco but any references to women who are
deeply associated with another "masculine" commodity might work.

Because my study has thus far dealt with racially ambiguous women, I'm
particularly interested in finding representations of mulata or mestiza
women, but I'll take anything you can think of.

Anything help/direction you could provide would be *greatly* appreciated.

Thanks so much for your time.

Best,
Jackie