Carmen Duarte’s “The Ship that Took Us to War: Fragments of a Novel in Progress.” Translated by Elizabeth Cruz Petersen (2021)
“The Ship That Took Us to War” is a novel in progress by Cuban American author Carmen Duarte. Inspired by firsthand observations, Duarte writes a compelling story of an aspiring musician who joins a traveling theater group on a forty-day journey as they entertain soldiers headed for Angola. Once aboard the cruise ship, however, the protagonist encounters abuses from the very men who swore to defend her.
“As a woman and a civilian who traveled with the troops … I observed how civilian women were treated by military men. It made me realize that men who are going to war can be as brutal with their own women as with the enemy.”
Carmen Duarte, “Why I Write About War,” Collateral Damage: Women Write about War.
“‘The Ship that Took Us to War: Fragments of a Novel in Progress’ by Carmen Duarte,” translated by Elizabeth Cruz Petersen. Collateral Damage: Women Writing about War, edited by Bárbara Mujica. U of Virginia P, 2021, pp. 233-47.
