Peruvian Music as a Mirror of Peru? A book review

Vargas Llosa, Mario. Le dedico mi silencio (Barcelona: Alfaguara, 2023) pp. 301.  [See English below] Según el autor, esta obra, que se ocupa del Perú, el país natal del escritor, será la penúltima de sus obras. Como sabemos, don Mario ha sido un autor prolijo y altamente reconocido, el más celebrado en la actualidad en Latinoamérica. Pero parece que nos dice que los años se suman y el cuerpo y el alma buscan descanso.

De modo que parece que Le dedico mi silencio representa el ultimo razonamiento escrito por don Mario sobre su país.

Vale reconocer al mismo tiempo que su trabajo literario a través de los años ha sostenido un punto de vista crítico y controvertido acerca del desarrollo político y social de América Latina incluyendo su país, e incluso se presentó en un momento decisivo como candidato a la presidencia de Perú, aunque no lo logró. En otras palabras, ha tenido mucho que decir a cerca de los retos que achacan su país y el resto de América Latina y también ha sido objeto de no poca critica.

Se puede decir también que ha sufrido un amor-odio por su terruño reflejado no solo en sus obras escritas sino también en su residencia en Europa desde hace mucho tiempo, pero hay que decir a la vez que otros personajes insignes han hecho lo mismo . En todo caso Le dedico mi silencio merece atención.

Para comenzar podemos afirmar que esta novela combina la relación ficticia con ensayos abreviados donde el autor ofrece contexto al tema que va hilvanando.

La idea principal de esta obra la expresa a menudo y de muchas maneras Toño Azpilcueta, un escritor en apuros que actúa como el personaje principal y que casualmente escuchó en una taberna deslucida de Lima a un guitarrista llamado Lalo Morfino tocar un vals peruano en una forma maravillosa. Toño queda tan abrumado por la actuación de Morfino que se obsesiona con la idea de que la música criolla, como el vals peruano, pueda servir como un embrujo para la integración de los peruanos. Esta noción es clave y en ella don Mario aborda algo muy conocido por los peruanos: que la sociedad peruana sufre de múltiples fracturas.

En la voz del observador anónimo,

“[L]a música criolla podía doblegar prejuicios y abrir las mentes y los corazones…[se] reconciliarían las diferencias, los abismos sociales e hicieran que más ricos blanquiñosos…se unieran felices con negras pobretonas…o viceversa, mujeres blancas y ricas cayendo en los brazos de hombres negros, cholos, indios tan pobres como el mismo Toño.” (p.214)

Una “utopía criolla” es la idea fundamental que nos ofrece don Mario, pues. Y, en el acto, debo apuntar porque me complació enormemente, que el autor pasa lista de los artistas criollos peruanos más destacados del siglo veinte. Vale notar también que muchos de ellos son afroperuanos, reflejando una consideración que, pienso, se ignora o subestima muchísimo en el Perú. En otras palabras, el papel de los peruanos de ascendencia africana en la vida del país recibe poca atención. Es más, la obra está repleta de referencias y comentarios de índole étnico-racial, lo que me llamo mucho la atención. 

Pero a pesar de que don Mario se fija en lo étnico-racial, debemos notar también que los originarios del país reciben poco comentario. ¿Lograron los peruanos de formar un mestizaje parecido al de otros países latinoamericanos, como el de México, por ejemplo? El criollismo generalmente no se entiende como el cruce de sangre española con la indígena. Estoy diciendo que existen razones que el criollismo como concepto supera al concepto del mestizaje en Perú a pesar de la robustez de la cultura indígena. Don Mario opina poco al respecto. Me habría gustado algo suyo sobre esta cuestión.

Merece también esclarecer el título de esta novela ingeniosa. Son las palabras que Lalo Morfino, el insuperable guitarrista hermético y etéreo, le masculla a su querida que lo desdeña. Es como decir, “si no me quieres me voy.” Esto es lo que don Mario nos dice a nosotros sus lectores. [March 2024]

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Le dedico mi silencio, written as a farewell by Latin America’s most famous author today, Mario Vargas Llosa, addresses issues of race and ethnicity in Peru in novel form. As such, it first appears as a simple story but applied analysis reveals a more complex picture.

On the surface it is a story that has to do with Peruvian popular music. Don Mario, as many refer to him out of respect, is Peruvian and he specifically states that this will be the last of any writing he does about his native country or any other Latin American topic. I had the impression that the years had added up and his body and soul were seeking some rest.

In any case, he is not known as an expert on music, but he employs Peruvian popular music, known generally in this book as música criolla, as a literary device aimed at broader issues of ethnicity and race in his home country. The word criollo or criolla [the double l is pronounced like a y in Spanish] plays a central role in this writing so I offer background notes below. There was no translation into English at the time of this writing.

It is important to keep in mind that don Mario has held critical views, some very controversial, about the political and social development of Latin America, including his own country. Many writers stay away from contemporary politics but not don Mario. At a key moment, in fact, he even campaigned as a candidate for the presidency of Peru but did not win. So, he has had a lot to say about the challenges facing his native country as well as the rest of Latin America and some of his views have not been entirely appreciated.

I also have the impression that he has suffered a love-hate relationship for his homeland reflected not only in his written work but also in his long-time residence in Europe, although I admit that this is not unique for Latin American influentials. In any case, Le dedico mi silencio was a fascinating read for me, so I believe it deserves special attention.

For starters, we can affirm that this book is a mixture of fiction and abbreviated essays in which the author comments at length on the topic he is dealing with. These nonfiction pieces are interspersed throughout the volume.

The main idea in this work is expressed often and in many ways by Toño Azpilcueta, a struggling writer who serves as the main character, and who happens to have heard in a seedy Lima bar a fantastic rendering of a vals peruano (a form of música criolla) by a guitarist named Lalo Morfino. Toño is so overcome by Morfino’s performance that he becomes obsessed with the idea that music like his can serve as a charm for the integration of all Peruvians. This notion is key and don Mario is addressing something that all Peruvians know: that Peruvian society is fractured in more ways than one. 

Here are the background notes to help us understand don Mario’s deeper message: In the colonial period, before 1821, Peruvian society was a racially stratified and divided into three segments, a) Spaniards born in Spain, b) the descendants of Spaniards born in Peru also known as criollos, and c) the rest of the population, a majority, comprised of Indians, Blacks, and people of mixed heritage. Colonial Peru functioned as a pigmentocracy wherein the aristocratic European-born whites ruled over everyone else.

The criollos were different from their European forefathers because they loved their homeland, their lifestyle was more flexible than their ancestors, and, among other things, their music and food reflected roots from Spain, Africa, and the conquered Incas, none of which was appreciated in the same way by the peninsular-born patriarchs. This regard for local ways became known as criollismo or to be criollo (foodstuffs like potatoes and tomatoes, for example, were also regarded as criollo). This sense of America eventually helped bring independence. Don Mario’s novel is mainly about criollo music and criollo folkways.

In the voice of an anonymous observer in the story,

“Criollo music could break prejudices and open minds and hearts…[it] would reconcile differences and bridge social chasms and make rich white men…join together happily with poor black women…or vice versa, rich white women falling into the arms of poor black men, or cholos, or poor Indians like Toño himself.” (translated by this reviewer from p.214)

The main idea here, then, is a “criollo utopia,” as one reviewer put it.  

It pleased me enormously that the don Mario identifies the names of the most renown criollo artists who made their mark in the 2oth century. And many of them are Afro-Peruvian, something that I think is greatly ignored, or underestimated in Peru. In any case, the story is full of references and comments of an ethnic-racial nature.

But while don Mario pays a lot of attention to criollismo and ethnic-racial issues, he says little about Peru’s native peoples. He hardly uses the word mestizo, for instance, which in Mexico and other places in Latin America, denotes a widespread acknowledgement of racial fusion, meaning people and their culture descending from both Indian and Spanish roots.

The presence of Peruvian native peoples, mostly of Inca origin, becomes obvious to any visitor by virtue of their unique dress, their bountiful craftsmanship in the form of pottery and textiles, and the rampant abundance of Inca archaeological remains. An observer cannot overlook Peruvian nativeness, yet the country’s aboriginals are hardly mentioned in this book.

So, is don Mario indirectly admitting that he and his fellow countrymen were unable historically to form a blended or mestizo society and for that reason he draws a bead on criollismo? Yet the quote above reveals a yearning for racial tolerance if not fusion.

The title of this ingenious novel (“I dedicate my silence to you”) deserves clarification too: it immortalizes the words that Lalo Morfino, Toño’s guitarist hero, managed to mumble to the woman he loved but who dismissed him at the same time, it’s like he retorted upon being spurned, “if you don’t love me, I’ll leave,” (and Lalo uses the formal le instead of the informal te suggesting an arm’s length relationship with the woman he loved). It seems that don Mario is saying this to us too, his readers.

Kidnapping by Pablo Escobar, a book review (see English below)

García Márquez, Gabriel. Noticia de un secuestro (Nueva York: Vintage Español, 1996) pp. 329. El poseedor del Premio Nobel de Literatura narra en este libro las experiencias de varios colombianos que fueron secuestrados por Pablo Escobar, el infame traficante de drogas, en la última etapa de su vida criminal.

En vez de escribir otra obra más de ficción, García Márquez se puso a trazar el recuento de uno de los rehenes que Escobar había capturado en 1990, Maruja Pachón Castro, perteneciente a la elite colombiana, que, en unión con su esposo, Alberto Villamizar, solicitaron al autor que escribiera sobre su experiencia inolvidable. Obviamente amigos, García acepto, pero pronto vio la necesidad de incluir otras personas que también habían sido apresadas en esos días.

Entonces el gobierno colombiano consideraba establecer un acuerdo con el gobierno de EEUU para extraditar criminales colombianos dedicados a la exportación de estupefacientes como la cocaína. Sintiéndose amenazado, Escobar ordenó el secuestro de los colombianos mencionados comenzando con Pachón Castro para utilizarlos como rescates o fichas para negociar.

Debido a que el autor entrevistó a las personas que sufrieron directamente como rehenes, así como también oficiales del gobierno involucrados en esta crisis, la obra ofrece detalles minuciosos relacionados al cautiverio. Estos incluyen como fueron transportados los apresados secretamente, las condiciones de las prisiones informales, como se relacionaban los rehenes con los guardaban, como se alimentaban, las condiciones en las que dormían, como fueron tratados, etc.

Mas allá de estos detalles, la impresión más fuerte que recibí de esta obra fue el peso político que logró ejercer Escobar en contra al gobierno de César Gaviria. García Márquez dibuja a Escobar desplegando la misma fuerza o casi la misma fuerza política que Gaviria. Este contrapeso político no aparece en el caso mexicano, tan notorio como lo es, pues ninguno de los jefes de los cárteles de drogas parecen haber ejercido el poder personal que García Márquez atribuye a Pablo Escobar.

Es más, el autor nos ofrece un mejor entendimiento de los pormenores que atendieron el fin de Escobar, acribillado a balazos después de todo por la policía colombiana en 1993. [December 2023]

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The winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature narrates in this book the experiences of several Colombians who were kidnapped by Pablo Escobar, the infamous drug trafficker, in the last stage of his criminal life.

Instead of writing another work of fiction, García Márquez began to tell the story of one of the hostages that Escobar captured in 1990, Maruja Pachón Castro, belonging to the country’s political elite. She and her husband, Alberto Villamizar, asked the author to write about this unforgettable experience. Obviously, friends, García accepted, but soon discovered the need to include other people who had also been apprehended in those days.

The Colombian government was then considering an agreement with the U.S. government to extradite Colombian criminals dedicated to the export of narcotics like cocaine. Feeling threatened, Escobar ordered the kidnapping of the aforementioned Colombians, starting with Pachón Castro, to use them as objects of ransom.

Because the author interviewed the hostages, as well as government officials who became involved in this crisis, he offers thorough details about their captivity. This includes how they were secretly transported, the conditions attending to their informal prisons, how they interacted with their guards, how and what they were fed, in what conditions they were able to sleep, how they were treated, etc.

The strongest impression I gained beyond these details, is the political weight that Escobar was able to exert against President César Gaviria. García Márquez shows Escobar wielding the same or almost the same political influence as Gaviria. This political counterweight seems absent in the Mexican case, despite its notoriety, because none of the drug cartel leaders appear to have exercised the kind of political weight that García Márquez attributes to Pablo Escobar.

Refugees from the Spanish Civil War persevere in Chile, a book review

Allende, Isabel. Largo pétalo del mar (Nueva York: Vintage Español, 2019), Segunda edición, pp. 378.  Este libro trata de una relación de amor entre los protagonistas españoles, Víctor y Roser. Pero más que nada, nos hace consciente de lo que es ser un refugiado. Ellos llegan a ser refugiados de la guerra civil española, él un médico republicano y ella una arrimada que le cae del cielo. [See English below]

Es más, aquí entra el papel de Pablo Neruda, poeta chileno, quien, según la autora, arregla el rescate de cuantiosos españoles perseguidos por los franquistas, ellos también refugiados que llegan a Chile descrito por el poeta como “el largo pétalo del mar.” Esta actuación del famoso poeta fue inesperada para mí y reconfortante a la vez porque le confiere un aspecto más trascendental aún.

Los pormenores que atienden a la guerra civil y el golpe militar resaltan dramáticamente pero no fueron nuevos para mí, aunque sí aproveché de ellos una sensibilidad personalizada que me ayudó a comprenderlos mejor. Este libro representa otra obra excelente por parte de la escritora.

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Allende, Isabel. A Long Petal by the Sea (New York: Ballantine Books, 2020) Tr., pp. 370. This book is a love story between the main characters, Víctor and Roser, both Spaniards. But more than anything, it serves to remind us of what it is to be a refugee. Victor and Roser become refugees from the Spanish civil war, he a republican medic and she a guest who falls on his lap, so to speak.

It is at this point in the story where Pablo Neruda, the famous Chilean poet, comes into play. According to the author, he arranges the rescue and transfer to Chile of many Spaniards who were being persecuted by Franco’s soldiers. This is where Neruda refers to his country as “the long petal of the sea.” I did not know about this accomplishment on his part which I confess I found reassuring because it gives his life an even more transcendental glow in my eyes.

The details surrounding the civil war and the military coup though not new to me were presented dramatically, nevertheless. They helped me understand these events more so because they provided a personalized feeling about them. This book is another excellent job by the writer.

Pelé’ helps promote soccer in the U.S.A.

Soccer Diplomacy

When Pelé was about to retire from Santos in the early 1970s, Henry A. Kissinger, the United States secretary of state at the time, wrote to the Brazilian government asking it to release Pelé to play in the United States as a way to help promote soccer, and Brazil, in America.

By then, two more World Cups, numerous international club competitions and tireless touring by Santos had made Pelé a global celebrity. So it was beyond quixotic when Toye, the Cosmos’ general manager, decided to try to persuade the player universally acclaimed as the world’s best, and highest paid, to join his team.

The Cosmos had been born only a month earlier, in one afternoon, when all the players had gathered in a hotel at Kennedy International Airport to sign an agreement to play for $75 a game in a country where soccer was a minor sport at best.

Toye first met with Pelé and Julio Mazzei, Pelé’s longtime friend and mentor, in February 1971 during a Santos tour in Jamaica. It took dozens more conversations over the next four years, as well as millions of dollars from Warner Communications, the team’s owner, for Pelé to join the Cosmos.

During that period, he became the top scorer in Brazil for the 11th time, Santos won the 10th league championship of his tenure, and Pelé took heavy criticism for retiring from the national team and refusing to play in the 1974 World Cup, in West Germany.

Toye made his last pitch in March 1975 in Brussels. Pelé had retired from Santos the previous October, and two major clubs, Real Madrid of Spain and Juventus of Italy, were each offering a deal worth $15 million, Pelé later recalled.

“Sign for them, and all you can win is a championship,” Toye said he told Pelé. “Sign for me, and you can win a country.”

To further entice him, Warner added a music deal, a marketing deal guaranteeing him 50 percent of any licensing revenue involving his name, and a guarantee to hire his friend Mazzei as an assistant coach. Pelé signed a three-year contract worth, according to various estimates, $2.8 million to $7 million (the latter equivalent to about $40 million today).

Clive Toye, the general manager of the Cosmos, with Pelé after the soccer star signed with the team in 1975.Credit…Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

He was presented to the news media on June 11, 1975, at the “21” Club in New York. Pandemonium ensued: Fistfights broke out among photographers, and tables collapsed when people stood on them.

The hubbub continued when Pelé played his first North American Soccer League game, on June 15 at Downing Stadium on Randalls Island in the East River. It was a decrepit home; workers hastily painted its dirt patches green because CBS had come to televise the big debut. More than 18,000 fans, triple the previous largest crowd, shouldered their way in to watch.

At every road game during Pelé’s three North American seasons, the Cosmos attracted enormous crowds and a press contingent larger than that of any other New York team, with many journalists representing foreign networks, newspapers and news agencies. Movie and music stars — including Mick Jagger, Robert Redford and Rod Stewart — showed up for home games, lured by Warner executives’ enthusiasm for their hot new talent.

The Cosmos moved to Giants Stadium in Pelé’s final season, 1977, and there, in the Meadowlands, reached the pinnacle of their — and the league’s — popularity. For a home playoff game on Aug. 14, a crowd of 77,691 exceeded not only expectations but also capacity, squeezing into a stadium of 76,000 seats.

That season, the Cosmos had added two more global superstars, Franz Beckenbauer of West Germany and Carlos Alberto of Brazil. (Later, in 1979, the Los Angeles Aztecs lured a third, Johan Cruyff of the Netherlands, to the league.) Soccer seemed poised to enter the American mainstream.

But as it turned out, professional soccer was not yet ready to blossom in America, not even after the Cosmos won the 1977 league championship, in Portland, Ore., or after Pelé’s festive farewell game in October, when he led the “Love!” chant and played one half for the Cosmos and the other half for the visiting team, his beloved Santos.

The league had expanded to 24 teams, from 18, and lacked the financial underpinnings to sustain that many games and that much travel. Nor could other teams match the Cosmos’ spending on top-quality players. The league went out of business after the 1984 season.

But at the grass-roots level, and in schools and colleges, soccer did take off. In 1991, the United States women’s national team won the first women’s World Cup. (The United States has won it three times since.) In 2002, the men’s national team made it to the quarterfinals of the World Cup. And Major League Soccer has established itself as a sturdy successor to the N.A.S.L. (In 2011, the inaugural season of a new minor league with the N.A.S.L. name included a New York Cosmos team, of which Pelé was named honorary president.)

In June 2014, the city of Santos opened a Pelé Museum just before the start of the World Cup, the first held in Brazil since 1950. In a video recorded for the occasion, Pelé said, “It’s a great joy to pass through this world and be able to leave, for future generations, some memories, and to leave a legacy for my country.” [Excerpt taken from The New York Times as shown below]

Pelé’s family and his support of education

Advocate for Education

Pelé met Rosemeri Cholbi when she was 14 and wooed her for almost eight years before they married early in 1966. They had three children — Kely Cristina, Edson Cholbi and Jennifer — before divorcing in 1982.

After his divorce, Pelé often appeared in the gossip pages, partying with film stars, musicians and models. He acted in several movies, including John Huston’s “Victory” (1981), with Michael Caine and Sylvester Stallone.

It also emerged that he had fathered two daughters out of wedlock. One, Sandra, whom he had refused to acknowledge, later sued for the right to use his surname. She wrote a book, “The Daughter the King Didn’t Want,” which he said greatly embarrassed him. She died of cancer in 2006.

His son, nicknamed Edinho, was a professional goalkeeper for five years before an injury ended his career. He later went to prison on a drug-trafficking conviction.

In 1994, Pelé married Assiria Seixas Lemos, a psychologist and Brazilian gospel singer; their twins, Joshua and Celeste, were born in 1996. They divorced in 2008. In his later years he dated a Brazilian businesswoman, Marcia Aoki, and he married her in 2016.

Complete information on survivors was not immediately available.

His brother Jair Arantes do Nascimento, who was known as Zoca and also played for Santos, died in 2020.

Children always responded warmly to Pelé, and he to them. Neither big nor intimidating, he had a wide, easy smile and a deep, reassuring voice.

“I have never seen another human being who was so willing to take the extra second to embrace or encourage a child,” said Jim Trecker, a longtime soccer executive who was the Cosmos’ public relations director in the Pelé years.

Pelé was sensitive about having dropped out of school (he later earned a high school diploma and a college degree while playing for Santos) and often lamented that so many young Brazilians remained poor and illiterate even as the country had begun to prosper.

Indeed, the day he scored his 1,000th goal, in November 1969 at Maracanã stadium in Rio before more than 200,000 fans, Pelé was mobbed by reporters on the field and used their microphones to dedicate the goal to “the children.” Crying, he made an impromptu speech about the difficulties of Brazil’s children and the need to give them better educational opportunities.

Many journalists interpreted the gesture as grandstanding, but for decades, as if to correct the record, he cited that speech and repeated the sentiment. In July 2007, at a promotional event in New York for a family literacy campaign, he said, “Today, the violence we see in Brazil, the corruption in Brazil, is causing big, big problems. Because, you see, for two generations, the children did not get enough education.”

(On the subject of correcting the record, research for his 2006 biography turned up additional games played, and the authors concluded that the famous 1,000th goal was actually his 1,002nd.)

In London during the 2012 Olympics, Pelé joined a so-called hunger summit meeting convened by the British prime minister at the time, David Cameron, whose stated goal was to reduce by 25 million the number of children stunted by malnutrition before the Rio Olympics in 2016. [Excerpt from the New York Times article below]

Brothels in the Chilean desert, a book review

Rivera Letelier, Hernán. La reina Isabel cantaba rancheras, novela (Buenos Aires: Planeta, 1998), pp. 253. See English below. La vida de las meretrices que se dedicaban a aligerar la existencia de los trabajadores salitreros en el norte de Chile es el tema de este libro. La época es la década de los 1950s y puedo decir que la obra refleja un profundo conocimiento de las mujeres que atendían a los hombres que se dedicaban a extraer el salitre del despiadado desierto. Se entiende que la condición tórrida de las tierras atacameñas limitaba la sobrevivencia de familias normales y por lo tanto atraía a hombres solteros con sus trabajadoras sexuales.

El autor nos ayuda a apreciar el papel compasivo que las mujeres ejercían en relación con sus hombres-clientes, un trato que pasaba más allá de lo simplemente libidinoso y lujurioso. La soledad del desierto ayuda a entender este tipo de relación. Es probable que este conocimiento se debe a que el autor vivió muchos años en las comunidades desérticas lo cual le da un tono bastante autentico y sensible a la obra. También encontré los apodos que el autor la da a estas mujerzuelas y sus consumidores absolutamente geniales y graciosos, así como La Pan Con Queso, La Cama de Piedra, La Ambulancia, y, por supuesto, La Reina Isabel. etc. Vale notar también el sentido jocoso y irónico que entreteje el autor.

Como amante de la canción ranchera, me llamó mucho la atención este tema que desarrolla el autor en su recuento de la vida de los obreros salitreros chilenos y sus respectivas amantes, porque sirve confirmar la extraordinaria preferencia que gozó ese género musical más allá de las fronteras mexicanas. Me cayó con mucha gracia leer que el personaje protagónico de fondo en este cuento, la Reina Isabel misma, se animaba con las canciones de Cuco Sánchez y José Alfredo Jiménez, cantantes máximos de esa calaña musical, lo mismo que con sus compañeras y compañeros.

Otra dimensión de esta obra impar que merece mención es el estilo pulido de escribir. El autor utiliza sustantivos, verbos y auxiliares fuera de lo común y apropiados por supuesto. Las descripciones de sus personajes son de maravilla y sus retratos del desierto se puede decir que son mágicos, lo cual merece respeto porque siendo hombre trabajador, solamente logró un título de maestro de secundaria y, no obstante, fue galardonado en su país y fuera.

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This book is about the prostitutes who brightened up the days of the nitrate workers in the north of Chile in the 1950’s. I can say that the work reflects a close knowledge of the women who tended the men who, in turn, devoted themselves to digging saltpeter from the merciless Atacama Desert. We are led to understand that the torrid condition there limited the survival of normal families and attracted only single men who paired up with their sex workers.

The author indirectly leads us to appreciate the compassionate role that these women exercised in relation to their men-clients, an approach that went beyond the simply lustful and libidinous, the desert’s isolation helping the reader understand this type of connection. It is likely that this knowledge is due to the fact that the author himself lived in these desert communities for many years, all of which gives the work a fairly authentic and sensitive tone. Also, I found the nicknames that the author attaches to these women and their customers both touching and hilarious: La Pan Con Queso, La Cama de Piedra, La Ambulancia, and, of course, La Reina Isabel, and others. The author’s use of humor and irony is also noteworthy.

The author’s employment of the cancion ranchera theme, included in the book title, caught my eye because I am a fan of this musical genre. In the story, the Reina Isabel and her fellow prostitutes and the men they served verily enjoyed the cancion ranchera, a fact that served to confirm in my mind the exceptional preference that this musical genre enjoyed beyond the Mexican borders. I was very amused to read that the Reina herself and her companions, took pleasure in the songs by Cuco Sánchez and José Alfredo Jiménez, for example, also my favorites.

Another dimension of this unique work deserving mention is the polished writing style. The use of uncommon nouns, verbs and adjectives is striking and convincing. The descriptions of his characters are marvelous, and his portraits of the desert are magical, something that deserves respect in my view because the author was more of a working man, reportedly, who earned only a teaching credential yet was awarded prized recognition in his country and abroad. Good job in my view. There is no English translation as yet.

JOIN ME FOR A DISCUSSION ABOUT MY BOOK, “WE BECAME MEXICAN AMERICAN”

YOU ARE INVITED TO HEAR ME SPEAK ABOUT MY BOOK, “WE BECAME MEXICAN AMERICAN,” ON NOVEMBER 16th AT NOON. See digital poster below and the corresponding URL link where you can register.

The “Palabras” Archive of the LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (Washington D.C.) and the WASHINGTON CENTER FOR THE BOOK interviewed me recently to speak briefly about my book, “We Became Mexican American: How Our Immigrant Family Survived to Pursue the American Dream.” I will speak about what the book means to me.

I was chosen along with five other Latino authors from Washington State. See the poster below.

Here is the link for members of the public to register for the event:

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_0kYzNLIdTPCYDyZEg6B_tw

HOW THE SPANISH INQUISITION WORKED, A BOOK REVIEW

Aguinis, Marcos. La gesta del marrano. Una novela (New York: Vintage Español, 2020), pp. 680. See Spanish below. This Argentine writer offers us the best explanation I know of about how the Spanish inquisition worked, at least in seventeenth-century South America. It is published in English as Against the Inquisition.

Lest we forget, the Spanish Inquisition was the Catholic Church’s mechanism to weed out non-believers. It was an agency inside the church filled with white cloaked monks who venerated St. Dominic—Dominicans. The church rulers were so filled with arrogance that they openly maligned people to the point of burning them at the stake. It started in Spain in 1478, and it spread to the new world—Latin America.

The word marrano carries a heavy meaning in this book. It is an uncouth word for pig. In imperial Spain the word was used to refer to Jews who declared themselves Christian but practiced their faith covertly; they were also known as crypto-Jews. Marrano became a dirty word.

The author characterizes La gesta as no more than a novel, but the reader slowly realizes that it is a well-founded biography magnified with pertinent novelized details.

The main character in this work is Francisco Maldonado da Silva, a Jew of flesh and blood who lived in Chile, Argentina and Peru until the year 1639, apparently the first doctor in the land of Bernardo O’Higgins.

The author examines the life of the Chilean doctor to offer us unexpected details about the ill-advised cruelty that Dominican monks unleashed on thousands of individuals through their infamous inquisition. The group of people who served as a target for their multiple forms of torture was the Jews and Francisco seems to have served the white cloaked friars as the patron of the Jews, or the model offender, or the ideal marrano to justify breaking him—or rather burning him.

La gesta del marrano chronicles Francisco’s survival against a siege that the so-called Christian fathers placed on him almost his entire life until he could not take it any longer—all because he insisted on saying, this is me, not what you want me to be. He had the audacity to identify himself before the inquisitor judges as a Jew who was faithful to his religious and cultural values ​​instead of repenting like others. For this he died in a bonfire in the central square of Lima, Peru.

I delight in reading about the lives of other people, especially when they are interwoven with worthwhile historical information or cultural explanations. The length of this work required patience and dedication, but it was worth it.

—

Este escritor argentino nos ofrece la mejor explicación de cómo funcionaba la inquisición española, por lo menos en la América del Sur del siglo diecisiete.

No olvidemos que la Inquisición española fue el mecanismo de la Iglesia Católica para eliminar a los no creyentes. Era una agencia dentro de la iglesia llena de monjes de túnicas blancas que veneraban a Santo Domingo, eran dominicanos. Los gobernantes de la iglesia estaban tan llenos de la arrogancia contra la que predicaban que ellos abiertamente calumniaron a sospechosos hasta el punto de quemarlos en la hoguera. Comenzó en España y se extendió al nuevo mundo—a América Latina.

El autor caracteriza La gesta no más que una novela, pero el lector se da cuenta poco a poco que se trata de una biografía bien fundada y amplificada con detalles pertinentes novelizados.

El protagonista de esta obra es Francisco Maldonado da Silva, un judío de carne y hueso que vivió en Chile, Argentina y Perú hasta el año 1639, aparentemente el primer médico de la tierra de Bernardo O’Higgins.

El autor examina la vida del medico chileno para ofrecernos detalles inesperados acerca de la crueldad desacertada que los monjes dominicanos desataron a miles de individuos por medio de su infame inquisición. El grupo que sirvió de blanco para sus múltiples formas de tortura fueron los judíos y Francisco parece haber servido a los frailes como el patrón de los judíos o el infractor paradigmático o el marrano ideal para justificar quebrarlo, o mejor dicho quemarlo.

La gesta del marrano es la crónica de la sobrevivencia que Francisco logró a pesar del asedio que los padrecitos dizque cristianos le impusieron casi toda su vida hasta que no pudo más, por el solo hecho de decir, este soy yo, no lo que ustedes quieren que sea. Tuvo la osadía de identificarse ante los jueces inquisidores como un judío fiel a sus valores religiosos y culturales en vez de arrepentirse y por eso murió en una hoguera prendida en la plaza central de Lima, Perú.

Me deleita leer sobre las vidas de otras gentes especialmente cuando se presentan entretejidas de momentos históricos o explicaciones culturales que valen la pena. Lo largo de esta obra requirió paciencia y dedicación, pero valió la pena.

The Case of Pablo Neruda, a book review

Ampuero, Roberto. El Caso Neruda (Bogotá: La otra orilla, 2008). Esta obra es sustanciosa y está bien escrita, toda una novela histórica trazada con tino y consideración al sujeto. (Ver inglés abajo.) Existe versión en inglés.

El autor chileno, con muchos galardones, ofrece un excelente esbozo de la vida del gran poeta chileno, Pablo Neruda, desde una perspectiva que le cabe muy bien: sus relaciones con las mujeres que lo inspiraron. Cuando menos la página del Contenido nos guía con sus nombres: Josie, María Antonieta, Delia, Matilde y Trinidad.

El armazón literario es la ristra de descubrimientos que hace un joven cubano a quien el poeta le asigna la responsabilidad detectivesca de encontrar una de sus exmujeres que tuvo una hija con él. Moribundo quiere terminar asegurándose de haber tenido un vástago.

Es más, Ampuero, avala el relato principal con un telón de fondo fidedigno, históricamente, de lo que yo conozco: el golpe de estado contra el presidente Salvador Allende. Sus descripciones de las calles de Santiago y Valparaíso a medida que avanzaban los soldados golpistas en el momento que agoniza el poeta son aterradoras incluso hasta hoy día. Esta combinación le otorga a la novela un sentido trágico doble, el del poeta que muere lentamente y la inmolación del presidente y de su gobierno.

Según Ampuero, los dos hombres eran amigos y mueren sin ver el fruto de sus anhelos.

—

This work is solid and well written. It is a historical novel indisputably, one that portrays its sensitive subject matter with care and consideration. An English language version is available.

The Chilean author, an award-winning prose writer, offers an excellent sketch of the life of Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda, from a perspective that fits him very well, I think: his relationships with the women who inspired him. At minimum, the table of contents guides us with their names: Josie, Marie Antoinette, Delia, Matilde, and Trinidad.

The literary framework is a string of discoveries unveiled by a young man, a Cuban, to whom Neruda assigns a detective-like responsibility: locating one of his former lovers who gave birth to his daughter. On his deathbed he wants to go down making sure he had progeny.

Moreover, the author, strengthens the story with a historically reliable background as I know it to be, the coup against President Salvador Allende. His descriptions of the streets of Santiago and Valparaiso as the insurrectional soldiers get underway, and as the poet comes to an end, are frightening even to this day. This combination of Neruda’s yearnings and Allende’s martyrdom provides the novel with a double tragedy: the poet who dies slowly and Allende who comes to a violent end along with his government.

According to Ampuero, the two men were friends and they die without realizing their aspirations.

Peru lives a dramatic moment

Peru’s dramatic moment involves its new president: Pedro Castillo. Peruvians went through a mind boggling moment June 28, 2021, when their newly elected president took his oath of office in the capital city of Lima. He is an unusual man, and the moment is equally as rare. He is shown above with his wife.

President Castillo is unusual because he is a back country schoolteacher and he is taking on the big leagues, so to speak. That is why it is mind-boggling. On the day of his first run-off election, he reportedly ran down a mountain side barefoot to milk a cow. The correspondent who wrote this then added, “His taking the presidency carries enormous political symbolism.” Amen to that.

I am not Peruvian, but I developed a great fondness for Peru. In my life-long study of Latin America, Peru always stood out as a unique place where the hopes of its millenary descendants of Incas and others clashed violently with Spanish colonists over hundreds of years in a manner different from the rest of South America. I became fascinated with this collision and have kept an eye on Peru for many years for this reason. I have also visited there along with members of my family and loved my experiences.

This collision of cultures engendered bloody wars followed by periods of quiescence and adaptation which usually favored the more powerful Spanish-descended citizens in multiple ways. Like in Mexico, a mestizo population quietly grew over the centuries too (in contrast to Mexico’s which was not so quiet). I found these patterns perplexing and fascinating at the same time.

Political corruption was one of the outcomes from this uneven battle. In my view Peruvian politicians—usually Spanish-descended or mestizos—regarded the native-descended communities with utter neglect and they also viewed government office as an opportunity for personal gain. The country was misruled from the start by a growing a list of political scoundrels, worse than Mexico. They viewed their unschooled fellow citizens as an opportunity to tax them and get rich quick. Graft and venality ruled. Education for the masses was disregarded and democracy didn’t have a chance until recently.

In sweeping terms, this is the background for Castillo’s jaw-dropping election. He is Peru’s real first Indian-descended president. He said in his acceptance speech that “It is the first time that this country will be ruled by a peasant.” I wish him the best, but I have grave doubts. A tidal wave awaits him.

And, by the way, proud of his humble origins, President Castillo wears a most remarkable straw hat, a very Andean hat.