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The power of the brown American diva

Deborah Paredez celebrates ‘bold, beautiful, messy’ stars such as Tina Turner, Celia Cruz, Vikki Carr, Grace Jones and Aretha Franklin as fabulous role models for the oppressed

27 July 2024

9:00 AM

27 July 2024

9:00 AM

American Diva: Extraordinary, Unruly, Fabulous Deborah Paredez

Norton, pp.256, 22

‘Please don’t let this be a scolding!’ I thought as I moved past this book’s tempting title to read the author’s bio, noting that she is ‘the chair of the Writing Programme at Columbia University’. Sure enough, the very first line of the prologue – ‘The sound of a diva’s voice was how I knew we were Mexican’ – made me fear that this might be the case.

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