Who inspired Cervantes to tilt at windmills?
In Golden Age Spain, Dolça Llull Prat, a wealthy Barcelona woman, falls in love with an impoverished poet-soldier named Miguel Cervantes. It is a forbidden relationship, one that overcomes several obstacles, until the fledgling writer renders her as the lowly Dulcinea in his Don Quijote masterpiece, unwittingly exposing her to ridicule and gossip. Years later, when Dolça receives Miguel's deathbed request to see her one last time, she races across Spain with the intention of unburdening herself of an old secret. On the journey she encounters bandits, the Inquisition, and illness, but more importantly she wrestles with the choices she’s made and the regrets she has harbored.
At its heart, Dulcinea is about missed opportunities and second chances, but it’s also about the courage to make things right.
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MY STORY / MI VIDA
Ana Veciana-Suarez is the author of several books, including the historical novel, Dulcinea (May 2023), the young adult novel, Flight to Freedom, and a collection of essays, Birthday Parties in Heaven: Thoughts on Life, Love, Grief, and Other Matters of the Heart. A previous novel, The Chin Kiss King, was nominated for the prestigious IMPAC Award, an international competition in Dublin. In 2019 she won a Cintas Fellowship for Creative Writing for her novel-in-progress.
Two of her nonfiction books about the Hispanic media were published by the The Media Institute, a think tank in Washington D.C. Her commentary has been included in several anthologies, and it also has appeared in Reader's Digest, O Magazine, Woman’s Day, The Washington Post Magazine, Parenting, and Latina.
A syndicated columnist for the Tribune Content Agency, she has worked at The Miami Herald, The Miami News, and The Palm Beach Post as education reporter, features writer, projects writer, and editor.
As a journalist, Ana has received several awards for her commentary and feature writing. In addition to the Cintas, she has received a $5,000 Individual Artist Fellowship Award from the state of Florida for fiction writing.
Ana immigrated to Miami at the age of six and lives there with her husband, David Freundlich. She likes to say that her adult children have taught her immeasurable humility.
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REVIEWS / COMENTARIOS
"Veciana-Suarez is a sensitive writer with an ear for the intonations of bilingual speech and an eye for bicultural nuance."
Chin Kiss King - "Beautiful beautiful beautiful. I read this nearly 20 years ago and still remember it. A book about life, love, pain, mothers, women and letting go. Tissues necessary. And a highlighter for the chapter on Cuca’s 8 life lessons. I loved her scenes the most..."
Flight to Freedom - "Yara’s depiction of her and her family’s plight in Cuba and their gradual coming to terms with and adjustment to a very different language and lifestyle in America is credible, absorbing, and uplifting."