The 'Anti-Princesses,' On Their Way Around Latin America, Arrive in Ecuador

The cover page of the first volume on Frida Kahlo.

Published 24 February 2016

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“How far these girls who live in huge and cold castles are from our reality,” said the book’s author.

In a move that is smashing Disney’s legacy in Latin America, the Argentine “anti-princess” collection is being picked up by ever-more publishers across the region: Ecuador is the latest.

The series of books, by author Nadia Fink, took social media by storm in August when the eye-catching drawings of some of Latin America’s greatest women – like Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, Chilean folk singer Violeta Parra and Bolivian independence hero Juana Azurdy – caught the world media’s attention.

Instead of focusing on romance, these anti-princess stories are tales of achievement and overcoming difficulties. They do not hide the tragedies or controversies: the story about Frida mentions her bisexuality, while Parra’s explains that her first husband left her.

In direct opposition to Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty, the anti-princesses have no fairy godmothers to help them find happiness; they seek happiness for themselves.

“We tell stories of women ... Why? Because we know so many stories of important men but not that many about them ... We know a few princesses, but these girls who live in huge, cold castles are far from our reality. There are women around here, in Latin America, who have broken the molds of the time,” reads the beginning of the second volume of the collection.

Fink said of the books’ style, “One of our concerns is to try to understand the new formats that girls and boys of today engage with, where language is not linear, but distributed in multiple windows of a screen that interact with each other.”

The books will be officially launched in Cuenca, Ecuador, Sunday, from when they will be distributed around the country, according to Andes. Since they were originally released in August in Argentina, the books have been picked up by publishers in Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and Chile, as well as now in Ecuador.