Novel
Montaña adentro
Not translated into English
Marta Brunet · 1923
Synopsis
In a rural village in southern Chile, day labourers live under the authority of an owner and his administrator, don Zacarías, who dismisses anyone who commits a fault. La Cata, whose doña Clara, mixing the teaching of the Church with folk remedies, keeps watch over love affairs, has her life marked by motherhood and by her affair with Juan Oses, a worker with finer manners than the peons, rumoured to be a rich man's son. A carabinero, a former cattle thief, enforces justice through violence, according to Francisco García Mendoza.
Context
The author's first novel, the book appeared in 1923 and was classed with criollismo; Gabriela Mistral praised it, according to Biografías y Vidas, while its refusal to idealise the countryside, in a rough language, caused a scandal in the polite society of Chillán. Memoria Chilena sees in it the most accomplished work of her first period. Francisco García Mendoza recalls that critics of the time judged its spoken language harshly and that Mistral herself reproached her with distorting Spanish.
Who it is for
A short novel, in a Spanish loaded with rural speech of the south; no French or English translation.
Prizes and reception
Praised by Gabriela Mistral on its publication, then regarded by Memoria Chilena as the peak of the author's early manner.
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