Customer Reviews

Birds without a Nest: A Novel (Texas Pan American Series)

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This woman dared to tell the story of the exploitation of the Quechua people in Peru. She shows through her romance how, the state - in the hands of the hispanic -, the church and the law were united in the colonization of Peru, exploiting the native populations as much as they could, keeping the descendents of the Inca empire either captive or as slave workers. Well a surprising fact, is that this woman wrote the book around 1889 (when it was first published) a time, when a woman writter was not seen with good eyes. She was excommunicated by the bishop and The book was - of course - burnt and remain almost unknown till the late 60's when it was reedicted.

I want to give a rave review for this book, but, unfortunately I can't. Perhaps, it's because this is a translation, but I found the text an overly condescending, pedantic, one-dimensional rip-off of Uncle Tom's Cabin, with Peru's indigenous people in need of the white Peruvians' help, reform and sympathy. Although I am a romantic, I found myself rolling my eyes repeatedly at the descriptions of Manuel's love for Margarita. It's written in a way only a (unredeemably and ridiculously) romantic woman would write about love (I'm a woman, by the way). I also found the use of physical appearance to denote personality--although this is a nineteenth century construct--disturbing.
Although Uncle Tom's Cabin presents all of these issues, Beecher Stowe does it better with multi-dimensional characters and better crafted and linked storylines. Again, this may be due to this being a translation. I think I lost some of the richness of the original, so I'm going to read the text in its original Spanish to see what I think then. Nonetheless, the English translation was disappointing.

PROS: SPOILER AHEAD: The crash
The depiction of the Killac town authorities
The ending, somewhat predictable, but nonetheless good
Interesting view of North American/South American relations

CONS: (in translation): Pedantic, condescending and schmaltzy to the core in its treatment of the protagonists.

This novel by Peruvian female writer Clorinda Matto de Turner constitutes the first female narrative fictional text denouncing discrimination of female indians in Peru and perhaps Latin America. It reminds us of what Rigoberta Menchu did in the 90's regarding human right abuses in Guatemala, only that Clorinda did it one hundred years before. The novel, which lacks the stylistic traits of present female narrative, is strong in terms of content and validity as a social document.
Clorinda Matto was a brave woman, daring to represent the medieval rules that structured the lives of indian women (and men) during the 19th century and most of the twentieth century.

This novel is a great example of a mixture of romanticism and naturalism. Although it is at times over-dramatic, the social injustice that Matto de Turner shows is a good historical analysis of Peru in the 19th century. The characters seem to be portrayed more as collective ideals or stereotypes, but the message is still shown that the people with power abused their stations. A must read for people interested in the history of Peru or even of social injustice in South America. Reading it in its original spanish is usually the best to get the full meaning, but it is a pretty rare book to find, so the english version is still very good.