Additional information
by Adriana Páramo (Author)
"And there I was, eating alone in the most expensive restaurant in the wealthiest country in the world, thinking about the demise of my marriage. What's money good for?" Adriana Pá ramo muses in Good Girls Don't Sing La Bamba. Through evocative letters to her mother, the author chronicles accounts of her failing marriage, an extra-marital affair, and her humiliating downfall, all set against the backdrop of a wealthy kingdom torn between Muslim traditions and Westernization. Her chaotic personal life in Kuwait ran parallel to her life as an anthropologist, teacher, and activist. This is how she came face to face with a culture in which slavery is alive and well, and back-street abortions, alcoholism, drug smuggling, prostitution, domestic violence, and social inequality are as rampant as in any country of the Western hemisphere.
During her four years in Kuwait, she worked exclusively with women. The women's stories-- her young students and the Indian workers, the haves and the have-nots-- and the analyses of the culture are interspersed with the author's personal struggles. Pá ramo's unique blend of ethnography, memoir, research, quest, epistolary, and poetry creates a new language to describe a sustained exploration of women's lives in Kuwait and the uncanny ways in which we find love.
Author Biography
Adriana Pá ramo, a cultural anthropologist and women's rights advocate, skillfully weaves her cross-cultural experiences into her work. Her unique perspective amplifies the voices of women from diverse places such as India, Kuwait, Turkmenistan, Qatar, and her homeland, Colombia.
Adriana Pá ramo, an award-winning author, has penned compelling works such as Looking for Esperanza: The Story of a Mother, a Child Lost and Why They Matter to Us, My Mother's Funeral, and Keeping Quiet: Sixteen Essays on Silence.
Adriana Pá ramo's essays, mostly on women's issues, have been published in various reputable publications, including The Sun, Fourth Genre, The Georgia Review, and The Carolina Quarterly.
Adriana teaches creative nonfiction in the low-residency MFA program at Fairfield University and has offered Women Write, a writing class for Afghan university-level women looking to further their education.
She writes from Colombia, where, oddly enough, she works as a dance and yoga instructor, a role that has shaped her personal journey and perspective
