Dona Ines versus Oblivion

Contemporary Venezuelan fiction has not yet received the international acclaim given to other Latin-American nations such as Mexico, Peru, Colombia and Brazil, but all that should change with the English translation of the work of Torres. Her novel provides ample proof that historical fiction in the magical realist tradition is alive and well in Venezuela. First published in 1992, the novel won the Pegasus Prize for Literature and has been beautifully translated by Rabassa, who has translated most of the major Latin-American novelists of the past 30 years, including Garcia Marquez's seminal work of magical realism, One Hundred Years of Solitude. The chronicle is narrated by aristocratic Caraccan, Dona Ines Villega y Solorzano, and covers 300 years, beginning in 1663. Dona Ines is obsessed with her title to a piece of jungle land that her husband gave to his mulatto love-child, Juan del Rosario. The legal battle continues for centuries, and Dona Ines continues to describe its progress, and the changes that are happening to her country, long after her death in 1781. While apparently fantastic and surreal, the tale is based on an actual Venezuelan court case that was resolved only in the late 1980s. The prime conflict is between the white heirs of Dona Ines, and the black and mulatto descendants of her husband and a slave woman. But the real protagonist is Venezuela itself, whose colourful history is revealed in the course of the compelling and superbly constructed narrative - from forgotten colonial outpost, to an important base in Simon Bolivar's struggle for independence from Spain, to the devastating earthquake of 1824 and the succession of political struggles that led to the emergence of today's oil-rich nation. Torres was formerly a psychotherapist, and is currently cultural correspondent for the Caracas daily, El Universal. This translation should establish her as one of the greats of contemporary Latin-American literature. (Kirkus UK)