Narrative
El poeta, el niño y el río
Not translated into English
José León Sánchez · 1963
Synopsis
Chepito, the little boy who narrates, admits from the outset to three fears: school, the school inspector and the devil. A turbulent child, ill-treated, starved of affection and misunderstood, he finds a companion in don Rogelio, a poet with whom he goes fishing at the river. The narrative mixes poetic turns of phrase with a raw realism.
Context
The text won the 1963 competition of the authors' association. According to the University of Costa Rica, the jury, on learning that the winner was a prisoner, tried to overturn its verdict; the philosopher Constantino Láscaris, himself a prizewinner, then brought to the National Theatre a chair decked with flowers, which stayed empty. The author says he drew the setting from the outings that the poet Rogelio Sotela organised for the children of the hospice, to whose memory the text is dedicated. Manuel Bermúdez hears in it an echo of a Costa Rican novel of childhood, of Dickens and of Mark Twain. The story was reprinted in a collection in 2012.
Who it is for
A short narrative in Spanish, told by a child in simple language; no French translation.
Prizes and reception
First prize at the Jeux floraux of 1963, awarded to an absent laureate, then in prison: one of the author's very first texts.
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