All roads lead to Austen

How successfully does the world of Jane Austen translate into Spanish? One intrepid author finds out in this literary exploration/travel memoir. On sabbatical, Austen devotee Smith embarked on a project to discuss Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Emma with reading groups in Latin America. Displaying the good cheer and wry humor befitting an Austenite (as opposed to, say, an Emily Bronte or George Eliot enthusiast), she plunged into Spanish immersion classes in Guatemala, then set off for a romantic fling and the first of several reading adventures in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Smith was happy to discover that Austen's genteel 19th-century English setting and formal narrative style proved to be relatable to her eager readers: Nearly all of them recognized their own lives in the plots and affirmed that issues of gender, class and familial obligation transcend era and locale.