Rosario Ferré

Sweet Diamond Dust

(Plume, 1996)

A little bit about her life

Rosario Ferré was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, in 1938. She received her MA in Hispanic American and Peninsular literature

from the University of Puerto Rico (1982), and her PhD from the University of Maryland (1987).

Ferré was born into a privileged family but not wealthy: she and her brother studied in private schools, and her parents paid for her studies in American universities so that she could speak English like a native.

When she finished her BA, Ferré married a businessman, Benigno Trigo González. This marriage ended in a divorce more than a decade later. They had three children: Rosario Lorenza, Benigno, and Luis Alfredo.

A little bit about her life

When she was studying at the University of Puerto Rico, she met her second husband: a Latin American literature professor and Mexican writer, José Aguilar Mora. They got divorced after a few years of marriage.

Later, when she was studying at the University of Maryland, she found her identity as a literary critic, as a short story writer, and as a woman. She met her third husband, Puerto Rican architect Agustín Costa Quintano.

Ferré returned to the island with Costa Quintano, and established their permanent residence.

A little bit about her literary work

Ferré has written in all types of genres: poetry, narrative, and essay. She is known for expressing her critical viewpoints of Puerto Rican

society in her works. Her first poems, short stories, and critical essays were published in a

journal entitled Zona: carga y descarga. In fact, she directed this journal between 1972 and 1974.

The following link shows her extensive literary work: link. She won the “Liberatur Prix” price in Frankfurt, Germany (1992). She was nominated for the National Book Price in 1995. In 1996 she was an honorary guest during the “Grinzane Cavour”

price festivities in Turin, Italy. She received an Honorary Degree from Brown University in 1997.

More about her literary work

Since she began writing in 1970, Ferré has fought to foster women’s participation in the literary field.

She personally knows the difficulties that women writers experience in regards to publishing houses, literary criticism, and public in general.

According to her, all these obstacles are even harder to overcome when it comes to Puerto Rico—and Spanish America overall—because women’s social roles are still very traditional.

Although Puerto Rico is part of the US, its Hispanic heritage and culture continue dominating the relationships among men and women: Puerto Rican women have political freedom but lack social and cultural freedom.

Themes

The problems women face at the various levels of the Puerto Rican stratified society.

Conflicts of social class and racial discrimination. The woman as a writer: her characteristics, possibilities, and

limitations. Puerto Rican history: Ferré has always been fascinated by the

reconstruction of the past because, according to her, the roots of the present times are found in the past. She also believes that, despite its injustices, this past, vanished world had values that are worth to recover.

Sweet Diamond Dust (Maldito amor). Ferré borrowed her novel’s title from a song by Juan Morel Campos, a Puerto Rican composer.

Who was Juan Morel Campos?

Morel Campos was the most prolific composer from the 19th century. Ferré borrowed the title of this Morel Campos’s song for her novel

because the conflicts that are narrated in the novel started to take place towards the end of the 19th century/beginning of the 20th century.

Sweet Diamond Dust begins with an evocation of the Puerto Rico from the beginning of the 20th century. It was during this time that the economic collapse took place; the previous social class system (with landowners at the top of the pyramid) started to disappear, and a new capitalist social class, dominated by US companies, emerged.

Bibliography

Chang-Rodriguez, Raquel and Malva E. Filer (eds.). Voces de Hispanoamérica. Antología literaria. Thomson: Canada, 2004.

Hintz, Suzanne S., “La palabra, según Rosario Ferré.” http://www.ensayistas.org/filosofos/puertorico/ferre/introd.htm