Novel
La ruta de su evasión
Not translated into English
Yolanda Oreamuno · 1949
Synopsis
In a family dominated by Don Vasco, a cruel father who relentlessly brutalises his wife, Teresa, a resigned and dying woman, three sons grow up, Roberto, Gabriel and Álvaro. One marries without love the young woman he has made pregnant, another divides his affections between two girls, the third shuts himself in his room, unable to face his life. Through each one's thoughts, the novel searches consciences and gives voice to the women who suffer injustice in silence.
Context
Crowned in 1948 by the Central American novel competition of Guatemala's Ministry of Public Education, the book appeared in 1949 and was reissued in 1970 by the Editorial Universitaria Centroamericana. The author's only published novel, it uses stream of consciousness, and critics regard it as the most advanced of its generation in Latin America in narrative technique, likening it to Proust and Thomas Mann. It has been translated neither into French nor into English.
Who it is for
For discovering a pioneering Costa Rican novel that dissects male domination within a family.
Prizes and reception
Abelardo Bonilla praised the boldness of its conception and form, while noting a lack of inner unity.