Novel
The Breach
Los fundadores del alba
Renato Prada Oropeza · 1969
Synopsis
In 1967, in south-eastern Bolivia, a guerrilla column holds the forest, and the book alternates between two worlds. On one side are the guerrillas, under the authority of the Jefe: Javier, whose words carry the conviction of the group, Laura, the Camba, the Potranca. On the other is the army, its captain and its soldiers, and figures such as the Loro. The narrative passes from one camp to the other without warning, and sets against the repression pages that refer back to Che's diary.
Context
The novel appeared in 1969 in Havana, two years after the Ñancahuazú guerrilla campaign, and sets fiction in dialogue with Guevara's diary. Alejo Carpentier, a member of the Cuban jury that awarded it a prize, commented on its characters. The same year, Mario Vargas Llosa, a juror for the Erich Guttentag prize, praised its objective treatment of the conflict. The book went through thirteen editions with Los Amigos del Libro up to 1997, and was translated into English, Italian, Czech and Russian.
Who it is for
In Spanish, with no French translation. Short and harsh, with shifts of voice and point of view that no sign announces.
Prizes and reception
Casa de las Américas Prize 1969, and the Erich Guttentag national novel prize the same year.
Sources for this page 4
The pages consulted to check this page.