FROM THE EDITOR.

• Author: Kiernan, James Patrick
• Position: Brief Article

These holidays now upon us are not only times of hearth and home but also, ironically, times of travel, because many of us call more than one place home. In this issue of Americas, we talk to two artists whose creative lives are fed by very different home places. Dominican American writer Julia Alvarez, who teaches in Vermont, creates multidimensional female characters who live out their lives amid some of the most tumultuous periods of recent Caribbean history. Painter Claudio Bravo, who renders folded illusions in rich oils and pastels, illuminates his work with different qualities of light found in the Mediterranean and in Ids native Chile.

Fixing his lens on those delightful details that distinguish communities and their markets from Colombia to Argentina, Victor Englebert confirms that South America's markets "are as different from each other as are their villages and people." In each market, the variety of produce, products, and animals is determined by locality. And, it is possible, depending on the place, to find a turkey. For those of us who have raised turkeys and believe we...