About the Author
Based in Santo Domingo on assignment for the U.S. Department of State as Press Attaché from 2010 to 2013, Judith Ravin began her diplomatic career at the Department of State in 2003, after many years living and working abroad as an editor, translator and journalist. She currently serves as Consul General at U.S. Consulate General Chennai, India. In addition to the Dominican Republic and India, she has worked in Peru, the Office of the Haiti Special Coordinator in Washington DC, Pakistan, Sudan, Cameroon and Mexico. Prior to becoming a Foreign Service Officer for the Department of State, she lived in Tokyo, where she was a Spanish-English translator for the Embassy of Peru, freelance editor for Kodansha International and news rewriter for Fuji TV. Between extended stays in Tokyo and Buenos Aires, Ravin worked for the Ouagadougou-based Journal du Jeudi as a journalist and for the Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO) as a translator and editor.
Judith Ravin is author of Peru After Chamba | Chronicles (available in Spanish as Perú After Chamba | Crónicas), co-author of Beyond Our Degrees of Separation: Washington Monsoons and Islamabad Blues (2017), editorial-production team leader of Traditional Tuti (Khartoum, 2010), on-site researcher-writer for the Mali chapter of The Rough Guide to West Africa (special 2000 edition), and editor of Argentine travel guides La Guía Pirelli Argentina 1995 and La Guía Pirelli Uruguay (1st edition, 1996).
Ravin earned a Master of Arts degree in Romance Languages and Literatures from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish from Brandeis University. She also did undergraduate work in language, literature and history at universities in Spain and France.
Edición en español
Ballet en los cañaverales, de la escritora y diplomática Judith Ravin, lleva al lector a la República Dominicana de hoy —“el lugar más ruidoso del mundo”—, donde lo más baladí puede dar paso a un diálogo. Mientras los vecinos sacan las sillas para una conversación ociosa o para un juego de dominó en la acera, lo demás se mueve en cámara lenta. La fatiga conquista incluso a los más pequeños, cuya solución al calor son unas paletas de helado que engañan al cuerpo con un frescor efímero, sobre todo cuando los tentáculos helados gotean por la barbilla. Taxistas, una estrella del hip hop en plena pubertad y masas de peatones pueblan esta serie de viñetas autobiográficas que reflejan el optimismo, la generosidad y la mirada compasiva de la autora.
Escrito en inglés y traducido al español, Ballet en los cañaverales es por un lado un estudio cultural, una obra literaria, y por el otro, una crónica conmovedora, una obra del corazón. Las viñetas iluminan la vida cotidiana de los dominicanos y revelan las luchas a las que intentan sobreponerse.
Estos relatos le abren al mundo la cotidianidad de la vida dominicana.