Novel
El jardín de las Weismann
Not translated into English
Jorge Eliécer Pardo · 1978
Synopsis
In a village in Tolima during the civil war that follows the assassination of the Liberal leader, a garden kept by sisters of German origin serves as a fixed point for everything that happens around it. Ramón Rodríguez has taken to the hills without knowing exactly what he is fighting against; he loves Gloria, who is also courted by Antonio, a mayor dismissed by the military. Sergeant Peñaranda is looking for him. Two generations of sisters resemble each other so much that they are mistaken for one another, and the narrative passes from one to the other without warning.
Context
The book appeared from Plaza & Janés in 1978, written at the age of twenty-seven, under a title that the author later changed: the sisters were at first called Hartmann. The third edition, the first under the current title, came out from a university press in Ibagué with a cover painted for it. The novel was received at once as a new way of treating a subject that the literature of the country had already treated a great deal, by going through the inner lives of the characters instead of the chronicle of events. A television series has been made from it, and English and Icelandic translations were under way in 2023.
Who it is for
A short novel, translated into French. Its construction is disorienting at first: generations overlap and the twins merge into one another, which is intentional.
Prizes and reception
Its author's first work and one of the books that renewed the novel of the Colombian Violence. Nine editions and a French translation.