Novel
Bomarzo
Manuel Mujica Láinez · 1962
Synopsis
Pier Francesco Orsini, Duke of Bomarzo, tells his own life, four centuries after the events, according to Max Pearl in The Nation; it has also been read as the account of a dead man. At his birth, the astrologer Sandro Benedetto reads in his chart an endless life and misfortunes just as long. Born hunchbacked into a warrior line, he is humiliated by his brothers and his father, and protected by his grandmother. Sent to the Medici in Florence, he discovers art; back at the castle, obsessed with immortality, he has a garden of monsters carved into the rocks of the estate.
Context
The novel was published in 1962 and received the national literature prize the following year, then in 1964 the John F. Kennedy Prize, shared with the novelist Julio Cortázar. The composer Alberto Ginastera drew an opera from it, to a libretto by the author, premiered in Washington on 19 May 1967; a municipal decree banned its performance at the Teatro Colón in the name of decency, and the work was not staged there until 1972, reports Los Andes.
Who it is for
A historical novel in Spanish, narrated by its hero; translated into French by Catherine Ballestero in 1987.
Prizes and reception
Often regarded as the most successful of its author's European novels, and awarded the national prize in 1963.
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