A Place Called Milagro de la Paz

Manlio Argueta's most lyrical novel to date, A PLACE CALLED MILAGRO DE LA PAZ continues de saga of life among the common people in El Salvador begun with ONE DAY OF LIFE. Examining the legacy of civil strife in the lives of a Salvadoran family, it tells the story of the courage and strength of a single mother and her daughter, who have to overcome the trauma of the murder of the eldest daughter and survive in an atmosphere of bitter poverty and repression. The book is filled, however, with magical, lyric moments of love and compassion, strangely illuminated by the figure of a young girl with butterflies in her hair who suddenly appears and adopts the family. This astonishing tour-de-force exemplifies the best in magic realism. The Washington Post called Argueta's A PLACE CALLED MILAGRO DE LA PAZ an "exquisitely crafted novel" and considered it "a veritable hymn to these resilient, uncomplaining women." Critic Beatriz Terrazas wrote in Dallas Morning News: "It takes a master to turn a story of pain and tragedy into a thing of beauty. But then Manlio Argueta is a proven master of words." Philip Herter commented in The St. Petersburg Times that A PLACE CALLED MILAGRO DE LA PAZ "charms like a fairytale but has the moral force of an indictment." Nick Owchar from The Los Angeles Times noted that Argueta's novel "assures us that from the ashes of tragedy, the human spirit will rise like a legendary bird." Other words of praise appeared in Publishers Weekly, Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education, World Literature Today, and The British Bulletin of Publications.

The book is a very intellectual and sensitive portrayal of a family of three women who must deal with very adverse conditions and who have to make a living with very few means. It is at once serious and yet it allows for human dignity and inner strenght in the characters. A very good look at the strenghts of women in a very unfavorable setting.