Novel
Broad and Alien Is the World
El mundo es ancho y ajeno
Ciro Alegría · 1941
Synopsis
In the northern Andes of Peru, the Indian community of Rumi lives off its lands under the guidance of its old alcalde, Rosendo Maqui. The neighbouring great landowner, Álvaro Amenábar, covets these lands and even more the labour of the comuneros for his mines; he starts a lawsuit over the boundaries, backed by false witnesses, and the community entrusts its defence to a small-town lawyer, Bismarck Ruiz, whom the landowner also pays in secret.
Context
Completed in October 1940 in Chile, where the author was living in exile, the novel won the Latin American competition organised by the New York publisher Farrar & Rinehart with the support of the Pan American Union, and appeared in 1941 in Santiago, from Ercilla; the English translation followed in October of the same year. Two novels had preceded it, in 1935 and in 1939. The book has been translated into fourteen languages, and brought him international recognition.
Who it is for
A long novel in Spanish, which follows the community over more than a decade, from 1912 to about 1926.
Prizes and reception
First prize in the Latin American novel competition of 1941, the book that made its author known outside Peru.