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Informationen zum Autor Mark Kurlansky Klappentext "A fantastic social history" from the author of Salt and Cod ( USA Today ) In the Dominican Republic town of San Pedro de Macorís, baseball is often seen as the only way to a better life. For those who make it, the million-dollar paychecks from Major League Baseball mean that not only they, but their entire families as well, have been saved from grinding poverty. The successful few set an example that dazzles the neighbors they left behind. But for the majority, this dream is illusory. In The Eastern Stars, New York Times bestselling author Mark Kurlansky reveals the connection between two countries' love affair with a sport, and the remarkable journey of impoverished San Pedro and its baseball players-including Rico Carty, Albert Pujols, Robinson Canó, Sammy Sosa, and Alfonso Soriano-who have sought freedom from poverty through playing ball. Leseprobe Part One Sugar La caña triturada, como una lluvia de oro, en chorros continuados, baja, desciende y va allí donde la espera la cuba, para hacerla miel, dulce miel, panal. El sol que la atraviesa con rayo matutino, de través, como un puro y muy terso cristal, sugestiona, persuade, que se ha liquefacto la misma luz solar. The ground-up cane, ring of gold, continuously spurting, comes down, goes down and goes where the bucket awaits it, to make of it Honey, sweet honey, honeycomb. The sun shining straight through it with morning rays, crosswise, like a pure, terse glasswork, suggesting, persuading, that what has liquefied Is the very light of the sun. —Gastón Fernando Deligne, “Del Trapiche” Chapter One Like the Trace of a Kiss It is easier to describe San Pedro de Macorís, and the unique history and cultural blend that formed it, than it is to explain the country in which it was formed. There is a strange ambivalence to the Dominican Republic. Pedro Mir, the Dominican poet laureate from San Pedro de Macorís, described his country as: Simply transparent, Like the trace of a kiss on a spinster Or the daylight on rooftops. Of the nations called the large-island Caribbean, the ones that by size should dominate the region, the Dominican Republic is the one with the least impact and the least distinct culture. The others all have poetic names: Haiti, Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and Trinidad. The Dominican Republic has a name that seems a temporary offering until a better idea comes along. Even Puerto Rico, which has the odd history of having never been an independent nation, seems to have a stronger sense of itself. The Dominican Republic, one of the first independent nations in the Caribbean, seems to struggle with its identity. It is a country that has usually been out of step with history, left behind in the Spanish empire, left behind in the independent Caribbean; even on its own island, it is the country that isn’t Haiti. Almost as poor as Haiti but not quite, neither as tragic nor as romantic, the Dominican Republic missed the first sugar boom in the eighteenth century and came late to the second one in the nineteenth century. As with baseball, its sugar industry ran behind those of Cuba and Puerto Rico, and the Dominicans had trouble positioning themselves. Dominicans speak Spanish, but it is not a very Spanish place. It is neither as Latino nor as African as Cuba. Dominicans have developed distinctive and celebrated music forms, but they are not as influential nor as recognized as the many forms of Cuban music or Jamaican reggae or Trinidadian calypso. It does not have the strong tradition of visual arts and folk crafts for which Haiti is known, and in fact Dominican tourist shops are filled with Haitian paintings and crafts and bad knockoffs of them. They also sell tourists ...
