Novel
La niña de sus ojos
Not translated into English
Antonio Díaz Villamil · 1948
Synopsis
Domitila Perales, known as Domy, is the daughter of doña Saturnina, a fruit seller in a pollera at the central market of La Paz, and of a carpenter. Her parents, who want to see her become a young lady, place her at eight in a convent boarding school, where she stays until she is twenty. She hides where she comes from, and her parents avoid visiting her so as not to shame her. Her friend Rosario del Castañar, from a prominent family, receives her at home, and Ramiro, Rosario's brother, takes an interest in her, while two jealous schoolmates allude to her origins.
Context
The novel, born of a play that its author rewrote in prose, was awarded the prize in 1948 in the competition of the La Paz city hall, submitted under the pseudonym Oculista, and appeared the same year, after the writer's death. A word from the country carries its subject, birlocha, the daughter of a chola dressed as a young lady, skirt instead of pollera. Marcia Stephenson saw in Domy a mother of the nation, and critics read in it a foundational novel of Bolivian mestizaje, in the sense in which Doris Sommer speaks of foundational fictions.
Who it is for
In Spanish, with no French translation. A novel of manners in the old style, with La Paz words, chola, pollera, birlocha, that no note explains.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as its author's masterpiece and as one of the best Bolivian novels, a classic of costumbrismo.
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