Join co-hosts Anne Moore and Chris Stacey for an innovative, exciting, and passionate approach to world literature. Our current country is Spain during the “Golden Age”. Our third selection is The Disenchantments of Love, A Translation of Desengaños Amorosos by María de Zayas. Published in Spain in 1647, this is a stunning collection of stories about women's amorous experiences in a patriarchal and imperialistic society during the turbulent seventeenth century. What is new in the disenchantments is the deliberately feminist purpose stated in the rules for telling stories: only women are to narrate "true cases intended to disenchant women about men's deceptions," pointedly denying men the opportunity to dominate the storytelling. These ten sensational and bizarre tales focus on the ways lovers deceive women in order to "get their way," through magic, cross dressing as women, and rape-to the torture and murder of innocent women at the hands of their protectors-their fathers, brothers, and husbands. A fascinating dimension of these fast-paced narratives is what they suggest through omission, silence, and ambiguous detail: the untold story that fires the reader's imagination.

Club Member Registration: The book club is exclusively for club members. Here is a list of club members: CUCC Club Members. If you are not a club member, join and we'll see you at the book club: Become a Club Member.

Available Seats: There are 7 seats available as of November 6, 2026.

Date: Thursday, May 6, 2027

Location: Private room. Club on Michigan Avenue.

Non-Club Members Wait List: All registrants who are not club members are placed on a wait list. You are contacted if any seats are available after club member registration.

Reviews

“Zayas generates novelistic discourse by framing her scandalous narratives as exempla in order to stage problems of cognition and the subjective order of reality.” — Marina S. Brownlee, The Fear and Fascination of María de Zayas

“Zayas’s literary representation of violence as it is inscribed on the female body registers vehement protest against the treatment of women — Lisa Vollendorf, Reading the Body Imperiled: Violence against Women in María de Zayas

Photo Credit: SUNY Press, Promotional Material, Public Domain