Latin America Literature in Translation

by Manlio Argueta (trans. by Michael B. Miller)

Argueta (Little Red Riding Hood in the Red Light District) is considered El Salvador's greatest living writer, and this latest of his works to be translated into English will add to his reputation: it is a postmodernist tour de force. A disjointed literary puzzle--less so in this translation than in the original--the novel asks much of the reader, but the richly symbolic text offers many rewards. The form is clearly a metaphor for the political condition of El Salvador following the protracted civil war of the 1970s and '80s that left a broken country whose citizens are still trying to restore their former way of life. Likewise, the family of women who live in the shadow of a volcano in the small village of Milagro de la Paz (Miracle of Peace) are attempting to piece their lives back together after the oldest daughter, Magdalena, is randomly killed by a wandering death squad. The youngest daughter tries to signify continuity by conceiving a child with a handyman in an almost-but-not-quite-immaculate conception. Into the village wanders Lluvia (Rain), an angelic orphan who eats roadside flowers and whose head seems to bear a halo of living butterflies. Under her springlike influence, hope is reborn in the family. To some extent, this novel counters the despair that is so overwhelming in some of Argueta's earlier works, beginning with Un día en la vida (One Day of Life), yet the message is ambiguous: is Lluvia actually Magdalena reincarnated? Will the suffering created by human greed be replaced by the violence of the earth itself when the local volcano erupts? Miller's fine translation of this powerful but elusive narrative is accompanied by a short glossary of the Spanish terms.

The first several pages can be read at www.amazon.com

Here is a brief excerpt:

MAGDALENA, the older daughter, leaves the house every morning to peddle their merchandise to the rural folk who come into town. Clothes her mother sews at home, garments she herself has been gradually learning to make. While Latina sits at the sewing machine, Crista helps with chores around the house. All three share the work amidst the loneliness of Milagro de la Paz, where the only thing that breaks the silence of the days is the tower clock in the marketplace, striking the hour. Lord, which of them am I going to lose? Latina wonders. If any of us has to die, let it be me.