Description:
This book and its beautiful, unforgettable photographs of the rural community of Solentiname, in Nicaragua, shows us the core of a dream that was a myth and remains even more so as time passes.
Brief description: Ana Cristina Henriquez is a creative, multi-genre, award-winning Venezuelan/American writer and filmmaker based in the United States. After obtaining a master's degree in Cinematic Arts from the University of Southern California, she has excelled as a bilingual script consultant, documentary filmmaker, and producer of television series for RCTV, National Geographic, and the BBC. She is also a writer of poetry books, including Párpados entreabiertos (Half-Open Eyes), which won Best Poetry Book (Honorable Mention) in ILBA 2022. Her book Solentiname: encountering a myth, was awarded Best Art Book (Bronze Medal) in ILBA 2022. In The Moon, Julia, and the Telescope, awarded as Best Children´s Picture Book (Honorable Mention) in ILBA 2023, the author gives us a heartwarming look into the fascinating world of a young girl. Her publications have been on Amazon's bestseller lists several times and are marketed in over 20 countries.
Review Quotes:
This book, along with its beautiful and unforgettable photographs of the rural community of Solentiname in Nicaragua, shows us the core of a dream that was once a myth and remains so even more as time passes. A myth based on testimonies as vital as the one offered by Ana Cristina with the lucid eye of her camera.
Sergio Ramírez Mercado, Miguel de Cervantes prize 2017
Photojournalism and art all in one
In her book, a photographic essay with a rich narrative, Ana Cristina captures the essence of daily life in Solentiname, its foundational structure and activities, its philosophical basis, and the applied Christian principles. You can see its humble inhabitants going about their business, you feel the happiness in their faces while playing sports, their deep devotion while attending mass, their concentrated focus while having group discussions, their dedication while fishing, painting, or reading. And among all that, the figure of Ernesto Cardenal, a trappist monk who abandoned his reclusion in the USA to come to his native Nicaragua and write and work for and among the poor.
Over 60 pages of photographs and narratives take the reader to 1974, when Ana Cristina decided to make the trek to the archipelago of Solentiname in the center of Lake Xolotlan, after attending a presentation of Cardenal at a university in Venezuela. The black and white photos give the book a character of reportage, but it is much more than that. It is a chronicle, a journal, a confession, a series of portraits, a historical document, and a work of art.
The narratives by Ana Cristina Henriquez are terse, direct, and say enough to describe the world of Solentiname and allow the photographs to complement and exceed the words. A picture is worth more than a thousand words.
Danilo López Roman
Escritor/arquitecto
"Solentiname, encountering a myth".
Ana Cristina Henríquez, as a young journalism student (Caracas, UCAB, 1974), made, with a high dose of courage and idealism, a visit to the priest and poet Ernesto Cardenal, in Solentiname Island (Nicaragua), achieving a beautiful portrait of that simple and laborious community, guided and inspired by the honest and supportive religiosity of Father Cardenal.
The book published today is a jewel, for the notes of the exceptional life of that utopian village and the eloquent photographic chronicle, full of talent and sensitivity.
It is a document of the active voice of that generation of young people moved by the world of the Cold War, the absurd Vietnam War, oppression, contrasts, and excesses; young people eager to change the inhuman, aggressive, and exploitative prevailing system.
"Solentiname, encountering a myth" is a valuable adventure, guided by the yearning for a better world, which has materialized 48 years later in this book, winner of the International Latino Book Awards 2022.
Inspiring. Welcome! Bravo!
Carlos Rasquin
Psychiatrist/Psychoanalyst