Novel
El ataúd de uso
Not translated into English
Rosa María Britton · 1982
Synopsis
In Chumico, a coastal village in Panama marked by the Thousand Days' War, Manuel, a pearl-oyster diver and the village's leader since the war, is a Black man who asserts himself despite discrimination and a great womaniser. Haunted by the fear of death and by the memory of bodies left unburied, he builds his own coffin. Around him, women of every condition live out love and passion.
Context
Crowned in 1982 at the Ricardo Miró competition, in the novel category, the book appeared soon after; it is the author's first book, which she drew from her family's history and whose hero is inspired by her grandfather. It looks with irony and humour at the village's ideas of progress, its false morality and its religious and family customs, and gives a place to Afro-Panamanian characters. The Colombian publisher la Oveja negra reissued it in 1996. It has been translated neither into French nor into English.
Who it is for
To read a Panamanian novel full of irony about death, love and the ways of a coastal village.
Prizes and reception
The author describes it as a simple novel, which has given her much satisfaction and still sells.