Irrelevant to Gretchen's query but I have to say it: the greatest novel about quitting smoking is undoubtedly *La coscienza di Zeno* by Italo Sveno (1923). "Ultima sigaretta" is proverbial in Italy. Sorry. Lowell Edmunds On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 6:42 PM, Gretchen Pierce <[log in to unmask]>wrote: > 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 > >