Novel
Coronation
Coronación
José Donoso · 1957
Synopsis
In a large house in Santiago, Misiá Elisa Grey de Ábalos, a widow of over ninety with a wandering mind, keeps to her bed and yet rules over her household. Her grandson Andrés, a bachelor of about fifty, collects walking sticks and indulges in philosophical conversations. Around her live two old servants, Rosario and Lourdes, and Estela, a young peasant girl hired to nurse her, by whom Andrés finds himself troubled. Mario, the delivery boy who courts her, lets himself be drawn into his brother's dubious dealings, while preparations are made for the sick woman's birthday.
Context
The author's first novel, the book appeared from Nascimento in 1957 under a cover by Nemesio Antúnez. According to Memoria Chilena, the manuscript, entrusted in 1961 to Carlos Fuentes, reached the New York publisher Alfred A. Knopf; the English translation by Jocasta Goodwin appeared in 1965, and the book received the Faulkner Prize, in 1962 or 1963 depending on the sources. Ebsco reads in it the portrait of a stratified Chilean society that departs from the social realism of the fifties. Calmann-Lévy published it in French in 1981 in a translation by Guy Casaril.
Who it is for
A novel of medium length, of classical construction; translated into French and English.
Prizes and reception
Awarded a prize by the William Faulkner Foundation, and adapted for the screen by the Chilean filmmaker Silvio Caiozzi.
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