Novel
Blanca Olmedo
Not translated into English
Lucila Gamero de Medina · 1908
Synopsis
Blanca Olmedo, a delicate and educated young woman, lost her father after a man swindled him; that man has since become a judge. A governess in the house of doña Micaela Moreno, a stern mother, she is in charge of a fifteen-year-old girl, and the son of the house, Dr Gustavo Moreno, courts her in defiance of the gap between their stations. The judge, the town priest and her employer harass her.
Context
The manuscript was completed in 1903 and was published only in 1908, when the Romantic form had already gone out of fashion in Central America. Its criticism of the Church and of the local notables caused a scandal: it was called heretical and harmful to morals, and several attempts to censor it failed. It was reissued in 1933, in 1954, then in Mexico City in 1972, and is regarded as the first novel published by a woman in Honduras.
Who it is for
In Spanish, in clear language; no French or English translation. A sentimental novel to be read also as an indictment of the local notables.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as one of the great Honduran novels of the beginning of the century, it is among the ten key books of the country's narrative selected by José Antonio Funes.
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