Paula Ramón is a Venezuelan journalist who has lived and worked in China, the United States, Brazil, and Uruguay. She is currently a correspondent
for Agence France-Presse, based in Los Angeles. She has written and reported for the
New York Times,
National Geographic,
Columbia Journalism Review, and
Piauí magazine, among other outlets.
Ramón's new memoir is
Motherland.
At Electric Lit she tagged eight books that are
not only for people who may know little about the country, but also for Venezuelans who are interested in our past and how, after decades of abundance, we got to where we are today, where families are dismantled and millions of people leave the country in search of a better life.
One title on the list:
The Magical State: Nature, Money, and Modernity in Venezuela by Fernando Coronil
Taking some inspiration from Venezuelan playwright José Ignacio Cabrujas and his analysis of the providential quality of 
the State and the social impact of the sudden wealth that oil brought to the country, Coronil, an anthropologist, addresses the transformation of the Venezuelan State in the last century as the country became an oil nation. From the dictatorship of Juan Vicente Gómez to democracy, marked by the spectacular first presidency of Carlos Andrés Pérez (1974-1979), Coronil explains the relationship of Venezuelans to the State and its presidents. I first read this book when Chávez, thanks to a new oil boom, magnified and personified the notion of a generous and almighty State. It was no longer the State, now it was Chávez. That is why this book, first published in 1997, was also prophetic. Overall, it is key to understanding the Venezuela that preceded Hugo Chávez’s “revolution.”
Read about
the other entries on the list.
--Marshal Zeringue
for Agence France-Presse, based in Los Angeles. She has written and reported for the New York Times, National Geographic, Columbia Journalism Review, and Piauí magazine, among other outlets.
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