ISBN 978-0-9668612-5-9
$15.95 / $18 (Canada)
5.5 x 8.5 192 pp
PUB DATE: Spring 2000 Fiction
Winner of Foreword Magazine’s 2001 Book of the Year for Literary Fiction
Woman on the Cross is a novel that takes place near the end of the 18th century in a deforested Latin American country where the pre-Christian nature religion has been suppressed. The story tells of Sebastian Cristo Rey, the last actor in a family line of professional Christs who have made their living being crucified on Good Fridays, and what happens when Sidelle, daughter of the priestess who maintains the pre-Christian tradition of tree worship, is nailed to Sebastian’s cross. The theme echoes the way that the rape of nature and the rape of women were simultaneously justified in many pseudo-Christian cultures under the traditional droit du seigneur, the right of the bleeder—the “señor,” “sir” or “sire”—to claim whatever is virginal for his own profit and pleasure.
About the Author
Pierre Delattre
Pierre Delattre is a writer and painter living in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in northern New Mexico. Tales of a Dalai Lama was his first book of fiction, followed by Walking On Air; Episodes, a memoir; and, most recently, a book of essays, The Art of Beauty. He has has published stories, poems and essays in many magazines, and has worked in radio, theater, television, and film. During the Beat era, his coffee house in San Francisco's North Beach, The Bread and Wine Mission, was a gathering place for poets, actors and musicians.
For a time, Delattre lived and taught in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, aligning himself with the 'magical realists' both in writing and in painting. As a painter, he manages his own studio/gallery in Truchas, New Mexico where he also holds salons and workshops on the relationship between the arts and the spiritual disciplines.
Awards
Winner of Foreword Magazine's 2001 Book of the Year for Literary Fiction