Novel
Polvo y ceniza
Not translated into English
Eliécer Cárdenas · 1979
Synopsis
The south of Ecuador, in the first half of the twentieth century. Naún Briones, a peasant from the province of Loja, rebels against the landowners and takes to the hills. He robs the hacendados and shares with the poor, and along the way he meets the Quiroz brothers, bandits from Cañar who seek only blood, and the Eagle of Quito, a thief in white gloves. The chapters move outside the order of time, and one whole chapter contains only voices: songs and accounts from the people of Loja, some of whom maintain that this man never existed.
Context
Written in 1977 and 1978, the novel won the Maison de la culture competition for novelists under forty in 1978 and was published the following year. Five thousand copies sold quickly, but pirated editions deprived the author of most of his royalties. The bandit really existed, and the contradictory accounts of him enter the book. Cárdenas later returned to the bandits of the south with El árbol de los quemados and El héroe del brazo inerte, which form a trilogy with this one.
Who it is for
In Spanish, with no translation, a little over three hundred pages. The chapters do not follow the order of events, and chapters of voices interrupt the narrative.
Prizes and reception
First prize in the 1978 national novel competition; regarded as the best-selling novel in Ecuador.
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