Treinta Anos [Spanish]

Excelente lectura, recomendada para aquellos que crecimos en latinoamerica y ahora por una razon u otra estamos lejos, queriendo volver y sin saber como. No solo tiene una trama muy entretenida, llena de contenido y critica social y de todos los aspectos que se viven a diario en la vida latinoamericana-me sorprendio lo panamericana que resulta la novela. El lenguaje y las ocurrencias en la vida del personaje principal me recordaron mucho a Cien Anos de Soledad, aunque el estilo es mucho mas sencillo y menos elaborado. A pesar que la novela se desarrolla en un pueblecito de Tabasco, muy bien pudiera llevarse a cabo en cualquier lugar de Latinoamerica.

In this coming of age novel, Carmen Boullosa re-creates the rural world of the state of Tabasco, Mexico, through the fantastical memories of Delmira, the child protagonist, and through the oral stories of her grandmother whose memories date back to a more distant past, replete with stories of Protestant pirates and European explorers. However, thirty years on, neither world exists, both having been destroyed by modernization and the symbolic plagues which ravage the village of Agostoni. (Note here the indirect reference to the Uruguayan poet, Delmira Agostoni). The novel itself reflects on the way in which memory distorts, how the past is transmitted, and we are led to question whether the characters who we read about really existed, whether Delmira is inventing her whole past and finally whether Agostoni is a figment of the imagination. The reference to One Hundred Years of Solitude is not a coincidence. The history of Macondo reflects that of Agostoni: both have their origins in biblical paradises, both villages suffer from plagues, in both there is an exodus and finally both are destroyed, although by different forces. These imaginary communities which exist only within a book, preserve their memory by the written word, creating a permanent memory within the world of literature and the imagination. On closing the book, Agostoni, the creaking of its hammocks, the bakers, the dense jungle, its water and its stones, remain locked in the reader's imagination.