Novel
Rosa at Ten O'Clock
Rosaura a las diez
Marco Denevi · 1955
Synopsis
A boarding house in the Once district of Buenos Aires, run by Milagros Ramoneda, a widow, according to Eduardo Balestena. Camilo Canegato, a shy painter, has been receiving love letters there for six months from a certain Rosaura, whom he met while restoring a painting at a rich man's house. The novel is made up of five parts, each seen by one character: the landlady, the student Réguel, the neighbour Eufrasia, before an inspector who intervenes little; Manuel Prendes reads there a romantic serial that turns into a mystery tale.
Context
The novel won the Kraft Prize in 1955, ahead of hundreds of manuscripts from Latin America, and its author had written it without his family's knowledge, Balestena recounts. Prendes notes the variety of its modes of writing, from the deposition to the medico-legal report and a letter in lunfardo. Mario Soffici adapted it in 1958; the film, shown at Cannes, returned there in a restored print in 2024. Donald A. Yates translated it into English in 1964, Jean-Marie Saint-Lu into French in 1997, after a first version in 1968.
Who it is for
A novel in Spanish, told by five successive voices; two French translations, the more recent in 1997.
Prizes and reception
Its author's first novel, crowned with the Kraft prize in 1955.
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