Now We Will Be Happy (The Raz/Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction)

I met the author several years ago and read one of her earlier books and enjoyed it, which is why I read this one. I think she writes well and her stories gave me a sense of Puerto Rican society.. I recommend her.

A lovely book. No surprise that it's an award winner, with its carefully considered perspectives and intertwined plotlines. Each story is very well done, with "A Wish, Like a Candle, Burns" and "The Last Hurricane" being my favorites. Ms. Gautier is one of my favorite young authors and I'm so happy we got this book!

A glimpse into a world I am not familiar with. Evokes empathy.

The book is amazing! It's gives you fiction reality of what living in American inner cities.

You really feel like you know the characters personally by the way she draws you into the stories. Great read!

One of the most encouraging developments in contemporary literature is the increased attention being paid to Afro-Caribbean writers. Writers such as Julia Alvarez (Dominican Republic), Edwidge Danticat (Haiti), Jamaica Kincaid (Antigua), Esmeralda Santiago (Puerto Rico), and Tiphanie Yanique (Virgin Islands) are acclaimed for their distinctive contributions to this literature of both a place and a way of being. Amina Gautier now stakes her claim to join this esteemed group of writers.Gautier, who is of African-American and Puerto Rican descent and who understands both cultures intimately, has published more than 75 stories in some of the country’s most prestigious literary journals. She won the 2011 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, leading to the publication of her first collection, At-Risk, in 2012. That volume probed the lives of African-Americans in Brooklyn with empathy and passion.This September saw the publication of her second collection, Now We Will Be Happy, which won the 2013 Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction (awarded by the literary journal at the University of Nebraska). This time, Gautier has shifted her focus to the question of what it means to be Puerto Rican in America. Her characters are mainland-born Puerto Ricans (“Nuyoricans”) and native-born Puerto Ricans, including those of African descent, who are often overlooked.In these eleven finely wrought stories, the characters face questions of identity raised by family members and society but most often by their own divided hearts and minds. They struggle with remaining authentically Puerto Rican while embracing the idea of being an American. Does that require frequent trips back to the island, having a wide circle of PR friends, speaking Spanish (how much?), attending cultural events and waving the flag literally or figuratively? Who decides? How can one be comfortable in his or her own skin when dealing with matters of nationality, culture, race, ethnicity, and language? And these complexities are not simplified by the fact that Puerto Ricans are American citizens.......Now We Will Be Happy is as good a collection of stories as I have read in the past year or two. These are powerful, haunting stories that will have you wondering how the characters are doing weeks after you’ve finished reading it. Anyone interested in how immigrants and their descendants navigate multiple cultures is advised to pick up a copy without delay. And keep the name Amina Gautier on your radar; I suspect we will be reading many more impressive stories and novels from her in the coming years.Read the complete review on my blog: http://readherlikeanopenbook.com/2014/11/06/now-we-will-be-happy-explores-the-lives-of-puerto-rican-americans-navigating-multiple-cultures/

After reading Amina Gautier’s collection of short stories entitled Now We Will Be Happy, I was blown away by her work. I found myself lost in this book. I was lost in her world of Puerto Rican and Black Culture throughout the streets of Puerto Rico, New York and Philadelphia. There were so many details in each story that pulled me into the stories. This book took me through a roller coaster of emotion that left me feeling involved in the full story.This book was amazing to read and captured Afro-Puerto Rican cultures so beautifully. It illustrates a never ending journey to figure life by looking at our past and determining our (specifically Afro-Latino) identities through our experiences. Reality is something that a lot the characters in this book struggles to face and fantasies and escaping these same realities just hurt everyone in the long run. Job well done!

The best great thing about this book is that it manages to be about a group of people at the same time that it speaks about all of us. It's about dreams and hopes and heartbreaks and deep-seated pain, yet it manages to be uplifting and make you chuckle in recognition. The other great thing is that it gives voice to a group rarely represented in literature: the mixed race, mixed culture, mixed tongue Americans that in this book happen to be half Puerto Rican, half African American. Oh, yeah, and it's exquisitely written.