Bolivar: American Liberator - Paperback

by Marie Arana (Author)

A brilliant biography that "reads like a wonderful novel but is researched like a masterwork of history" (Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs), this is the epic story of the famous South American general and statesman Simón Bolívar.

Simón Bolívar--El Libertador--freed six countries from Spanish rule and is still the most revered figure in South America today. He traveled from Amazon jungles to the Andes mountains, engaged in endless battles and forged fragile coalitions of competing forces and races. He lived an epic life filled with heroism, tragedy (his only wife died young), and legend (he was saved from an assassination attempt by one of his mistresses). In Bolívar, Marie Arana has written a sweeping biography that is as bold and as passionate as its subject.

Drawing on a wealth of primary documents, Arana vividly captures the early 19th-century South America that made Bolívar the man he became: fearless general, brilliant strategist, consummate diplomat, dedicated abolitionist, gifted writer, and flawed politician. A major work of history, Bolívar not only portrays a dramatic life in all its glory, but is also a stirring declaration of what it means to be South American.

Author Biography

Marie Arana was born in Lima, Peru. She is the author of the memoir American Chica, a finalist for the National Book Award; two novels, Cellophane and Lima Nights; the prizewinning biography Bolivar; Silver, Sword, and Stone, a narrative history of Latin America; The Writing Life, a collection from her well-known column for The Washington Post; and LatinoLand. She is the inaugural Literary Director of the Library of Congress and lives in Washington, DC, and Lima, Peru.