Novel
País portátil
Not translated into English
Adriano González León · 1969
Synopsis
Andrés Barazarte, a militant in a cell of the communist guerrilla in Caracas in the sixties, crosses the city by bus, stuck in traffic jams, with a briefcase whose contents are dangerous, a submachine gun according to the Mexican press, which he must deliver for a mission in Catia; at every stop he fears the political police. As the journey goes on, the memory of the Barazartes rises up, a family of landowners in the mountains of Trujillo whose power has fallen apart since the seventeenth century, through civil wars and decline, along with scenes with the grandfather in the old house.
Context
The manuscript won the Biblioteca Breve prize of the publisher Seix Barral, in Barcelona, in 1968, and the novel appeared in that series; the BnF holds the 1969 edition. Three times intersect in it without warning: the present crossing of the city, the family's distant past, the recent political past; a 1969 review found that the distant past ended up prevailing. The language moves from the hallucinated rhythm of the present to the slow, spoken, regional register of the family chapters. Iván Feo and Antonio Llerandi brought it to the screen in 1979.
Who it is for
A novel in Spanish, with no French translation, which requires following intertwined timelines and languages ranging from political jargon to old Spanish.
Prizes and reception
Biblioteca Breve Prize 1968 and, for Global Voices, its author's most remarkable work; adapted for the cinema.
Sources for this page 4
The pages consulted to check this page.