Dominican Republic / All works
Novel
La sangre
Not translated into English
Tulio Manuel Cestero · 1914
Synopsis
One morning in 1899, in a dungeon of the Torre del Homenaje, by the sea, Antonio Portocarrero wakes; a year has passed since he scratched the date of his arrival on the wall, and it is his love of freedom that has brought him there, under the tyranny of Lilís. To fill his days, he sets about reconstructing his life hour by hour: childhood in the village, in the Peravia valley, its festivals and customs, then, at fourteen, the boarding school in the capital run by Father Billini.
Context
The novel, subtitled Una vida bajo la tiranía, appeared in 1914 according to Acento, in 1913 according to El Caribe; Cejador dated it to 1917. It looks back on the last years of Ulises Heureaux, killed in 1899. Peña Batlle regarded it as the best Dominican novel, and the Henríquez Ureña brothers also admired it; El Caribe, on the contrary, sees in it a long pamphlet against a dictator who had refused the author the consulate in Paris, and points out racist expressions.
Who it is for
In Spanish; a novel of formation and of prison, rich in portraits of manners, put online by the Ministry of Education.
Prizes and reception
The masterpiece of its author according to Acento, and one of the Dominican novels most discussed by critics.
Sources for this page 5
The pages consulted to check this page.