Celia: Mi vida. Una autobiografía » (Spanish-language Edition)

For most Latinos under seventy, there has never been a time without Celia Cruz. Her career has spanned three generations and each one harbors memories of Celia's music. So deeply is she rooted into the collective Latin consciousness that her songs can be used as benchmarks to recall specific moments in one's's life.

After her recent death, nearly half a million people stood in line for hours, filed past her casket, and paid their respects in Miami and New York. Only a beloved queen has this kind of power to summon the masses on such a grand scale. Yet, this was only a sampling of her loyal public. All over the world there were mourners that could not attend, but anxiously followed the details on live television. Networks preempted their regular programming to bring the pageantry to the millions of adoring fans that could only be comforted by following the event as it unfolded on their TV screen. There were hours of retrospectives and tributes and even reruns of many previously televised interviews. People wanted to know more about her. They still do.

Celia was a woman of contrasts. She lived comfortably at the intersection of this contradiction. Her flamboyant costumes juxtaposed her simple and straightforward demeanor. She was open and accessible to her fans but staunchly private in her personal life. She was uninhibited without decadence; honest without offense; confident but not arrogant; and generous without fault. Her speech was simple but eloquent. One could easily miss the truth that floated in the spaces between her words. But above all, Celia was authentic and it was this authenticity that resonated so deeply with her public. They trusted her completely, even if they did not know her fully. Celia Cruz represents the pinnacle of what can be achieved with talent, hard work, faith and, most of all, guts.

The soul of Celia Cruz has remained her private domain all these remarkable years. Until now. Her rich, full life produced an extraordinary cache of archival information. Never-before-published personal pictures, notes, mementos, personal videos of Celia and Pedro touring the world and, at home and with family are but a part of what she has left us to tell her story.

This book is her story.

Publishers Weekly

"How did a little black girl from Santos Suarez [a poor, working-class Havana neighborhood] come so far?" asks Cruz. One answer: "Only God knows why I've been so fortunate." Another explanation-that Cruz's success derived from her inimitable vocal style, passion for Cuba and its music, and her desire to keep expanding her oeuvre by recording with new artists and embracing all types of Cuban music (rumba, cha-cha, mambo, etc.)-is less a focal point of this book, but emerges nonetheless as the reason for her eventual status as "a cross-cultural, cross-generational phenomenon," according to People magazine. Cruz (1925-2003) recollects performances with many of the world's greatest musicians, including touring with the famous Sonora Matancera Orchestra and bringing salsa music to the U.S., South America, Asia and Europe. Although Cruz prefers to reminisce about her fabulous life rather than explain her connection to the music that came to define her, her autobiography, conversational in tone, neatly tells the story of a woman who bravely left her beloved homeland for a better life-and wound up bettering the lives of many others with her powerful music. Photos. (July) Forecast: This volume will no doubt reach her many, many fans, and the Celia Cruz Foundation has prepared a long list of celebrities who will be promoting the book. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.