Novel
San Cristóbal
Not translated into English
Ramón H. Jurado · 1944
Synopsis
A young man goes in search of his long-missing brother Ricardo and arrives at the burnt ruins of the ingenio San Cristóbal, a sugar mill in the Panamanian countryside. The few remaining inhabitants send him to an old peasant, Chelapá, who tells him of the time when the mill was running: the zafra, the cutters who came down from the Guías, the burnings, the owner's family, the superstition of the countryside and the injustices of the bosses towards those who worked the cane.
Context
The manuscript received the Ministry of Education's first prize in 1943, as the reissues state; the novel is also dated to 1944, the year kept in the catalogue, and the date of the first book edition remains to be established. The narrative is framed by the inquiry of a narrator who has come to look for the traces of a missing man and who gathers the words of the last inhabitants. Its author belonged, according to La Estrella de Panamá, to the generation of 44, that of the students who founded their national federation that year.
Who it is for
In Spanish, with no published translation; the peasants speak a rural Spanish transcribed as it is, which takes a little getting used to.
Prizes and reception
Awarded a prize even before its publication, it is cited among its author's major novels, together with Desertores and El desván.
Sources for this page 3
The pages consulted to check this page.