Novel
La india dormida
Not translated into English
Julio B. Sosa · 1936
Synopsis
The mountains of Veraguas, in the early sixteenth century, during Gaspar de Espinosa's campaigns against the Guaymí of the cacique Urracá, who stand up to the conquistadors. The Spanish captain Rogel de Loria, who respects the Indians unlike his companions, and Flor del Aire, Urracá's daughter, love each other against the prohibition of both camps, while the warrior Yaraví loves the young woman without being loved in return.
Context
The manuscript was awarded a prize in its author's lifetime; prizes of 1936, for the municipality of Panama, and of 1941, for a competition of Latin American novels, are sometimes attributed to it, without being confirmed. The oldest edition found dates from 1973, from Publicaciones Cultural Panameña, in 187 pages; a special edition later appeared from Manfer, on the initiative of the author's brothers. Its readers see in it a protest against the injustices done to the Indians.
Who it is for
In Spanish, with no published translation, read by generations of Panamanian schoolchildren. It is better to know that the Guaymís are today's Ngäbe.
Prizes and reception
An award-winning novel, now a school reading in Panama, by one of the pioneers of the genre in his country.
Sources for this page 5
The pages consulted to check this page.