Novel
Manchay Puytu, el amor que quiso ocultar Dios
Not translated into English
Néstor Taboada Terán · 1977
Synopsis
Father Antonio de la Asunción, a young Catholic priest of Indian descent, returns at night to Potosí after almost a year away; he had left for Lima. He looks for María Cusilimay, the servant he loved with a forbidden love, and old Caoquí tells him that she is dead, consumed by the ajayu onqhoy, the sickness of the soul: she no longer ate, no longer slept, and she was buried without a wake or sacraments. The priest refuses to accept this death. Around him stand two figures, Ñauparruna, the Indian past, and Bigardo, the conqueror.
Context
Written in Argentina during the author's exile, the novel was published in Buenos Aires in 1977 by Sudamericana, in three books and an epilogue. It takes up an oral tradition that its author had from his mother, already turned into narrative by Juana Manuela Gorriti and by Ricardo Palma, and it enters into dialogue with the chronicle of Potosí by Bartolomé Arzáns de Orsúa y Vela. Castilian is mixed with Quechua, and the Indian language carries the identity that the story defends.
Who it is for
In Spanish, two hundred and thirty-five pages in the first edition. A legend of love and death, with Indigenous words left without notes.
Prizes and reception
Counted among the best Bolivian novels; the Museum of Modern Art in New York created a musical version of it in 1993, and Alberto Villalpando an opera in 1995.
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