Marlen Suyapa Bodden is a lawyer in New York City. She has more than two decades� experience representing poor people and low-wage and immigrant workers, many of whom are severely underpaid, if paid at all. She drew on her knowledge of modern and historical slavery, human trafficking, and human rights abuses to write The Wedding Gift, her first novel. Marlen is a graduate of New York University School of Law and Tufts University.The reader may contact Marlen Bodden at: marlensuyapa@optimum.net or PO Box 906, Stamford, CT 06904, and visit her website at: www.marlenbodden.com for the history behind The Wedding Gift in photographs, illustrations, maps, and a bibliography.