Novel
Los dueños de la tierra
Not translated into English
David Viñas · 1958
Synopsis
According to Lucía Furia, the novel runs from 1892 to the strikes of 1920 and 1921: three brief chapters in italics open the book, followed by La misión, El intermedio and La expiación. Vicente Vera, a Radical lawyer, is sent to Santa Cruz by Yrigoyen to settle the conflict before the army does. At Río Gallegos, he listens to the estancieros, meets the workers in prison and secures the release of Soto, their anarchist leader; an agreement is signed, Vera leaves, then the strike resumes, Furia writes. Yuda Singer, a Russian Jewish schoolteacher, enlightens him about the conflict.
Context
Published by Losada in 1958 according to escritores.org, the novel received that publisher's international novel prize. Vera in it represents the author's father, Yuda Singer his mother, and several protagonists of 1921 bear changed names, Varela becoming Baralt. Lucía Furia links the fiction to the episode of rebel Patagonia that the historian Osvaldo Bayer later retraced, and notes that it allows itself to alter reality. La Nación reports that the writer's father saw the rebels shot.
Who it is for
A political novel in Spanish about the workers' strikes in Patagonia; no French translation.
Prizes and reception
The novel that the publisher Losada crowned in 1958 with its international prize.
Sources for this page 8
The pages consulted to check this page.