Short stories
Sub terra
Not translated into English
Baldomero Lillo · 1904
Synopsis
Eight stories about the life and death of the coal miners of Lota at the turn of the twentieth century. Goodreads gives their titles and subjects: a miner dismissed because he can no longer work, a family forced to send its sons down the pit in “La compuerta número 12”, the danger of firedamp, a worker waiting for a wage cut by a fine in “El pago”, a pit where accidents follow one another in “El chiflón del diablo”, a legend of the region in “Juan Fariña”. The Chilean school curriculum reads in it the despair of men whom exploitation reduced to beasts.
Context
Published in Santiago by the Imprenta Moderna in 1904, the collection caused a sensation in the literary world, according to the journal Atenea on the book's fiftieth anniversary, which specifies that the author had not worked underground but lived near the pits and listened to the miners. Vicente Mengod, cited by Memoria Chilena, hears in it the intensity of a cry of protest and almost documentary narratives. Marcelo Ferrari made an adaptation of it in 2003, which draws on several of its stories.
Who it is for
Eight short, harsh stories, to be read separately; no translation attested, apart from a French adaptation of 2013.
Prizes and reception
A classic of Chilean mining short stories, on the school curriculum in the country and adapted for the cinema.
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