Product Description
René Rodriguez Soriano: An all-sweeping book, magical, transparent and evocative, sown with reflections and signals, so much as lightning, so much as light that, after reading it, no reader goes back to be the same.
Horacio Semeraro: Syncretism effect for a great narrative.
Thousands of stories and novels deal with mirrors. To write about them is a challenge to originality. Otilia Umaga the mulatto girl from Martinique -short novel, winner of the Juan Rulfo Prize 2008- totally deserves that distinction for its subtle sensuousness and the atmosphere achieved,
A Brazilian woman and a Dutchman, who owns an inn at Senegal, play the leading roles in a particular encounter. Over this background they will tell their story. But it will be a revealing mirror that through its transhumant becoming shows us another leading couple of the novel in a far away time:
A Belgian slave dealer –married to a Spanish woman from Seville- and a mixed race –mulatto- girl from Martinique, who enters the scene late, but with decisive participation. With a narrative as exotic as it is attractive, the author leads us to a mixture of Eden and Purgatory. The treatment of the passions and human behaviour in a torrid and sensuous climate coexists with the freshness and originality of her prose. Towards the end the features of magical realism –so dear to Juan Rulfo- get stronger, in an unexpected and fascinating spectacular encounter. The breaking-up of the temporal fields, the natural narration of unconventional or fantastic deeds, as also the meticulous description of characters in the real plane; coexist eclectically with Afro-American mythical elements, ghosts and catholic nuns. But it is Barugel’s prose, precise and erotic, that sinks the reader in that scenery with Senegalese drums rhythm and strong temperaments, achieving a syncretist effect in this surprising novel.
Lidia Barugel was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
She published Amores de vidrio (2007) and Contrapalabra (ilustrated poem, 2010)
Otilia Umaga, la mulata de Martinica, obtained the Juan Rulfo Prize,
sponsored by:
Radio France Internationale
Instituto Cervantes
Instituto de México en París
Casa de América Latina
Colegio de España
The newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique
Email: lidiabaru@fibertel.com.ar
Cover Ilustratión:
“Woman”, Digital drawing by Lidia Barugel
Horacio Semeraro: Syncretism effect for a great narrative.
Thousands of stories and novels deal with mirrors. To write about them is a challenge to originality. Otilia Umaga the mulatto girl from Martinique -short novel, winner of the Juan Rulfo Prize 2008- totally deserves that distinction for its subtle sensuousness and the atmosphere achieved,
A Brazilian woman and a Dutchman, who owns an inn at Senegal, play the leading roles in a particular encounter. Over this background they will tell their story. But it will be a revealing mirror that through its transhumant becoming shows us another leading couple of the novel in a far away time:
A Belgian slave dealer –married to a Spanish woman from Seville- and a mixed race –mulatto- girl from Martinique, who enters the scene late, but with decisive participation. With a narrative as exotic as it is attractive, the author leads us to a mixture of Eden and Purgatory. The treatment of the passions and human behaviour in a torrid and sensuous climate coexists with the freshness and originality of her prose. Towards the end the features of magical realism –so dear to Juan Rulfo- get stronger, in an unexpected and fascinating spectacular encounter. The breaking-up of the temporal fields, the natural narration of unconventional or fantastic deeds, as also the meticulous description of characters in the real plane; coexist eclectically with Afro-American mythical elements, ghosts and catholic nuns. But it is Barugel’s prose, precise and erotic, that sinks the reader in that scenery with Senegalese drums rhythm and strong temperaments, achieving a syncretist effect in this surprising novel.
Lidia Barugel was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
She published Amores de vidrio (2007) and Contrapalabra (ilustrated poem, 2010)
Otilia Umaga, la mulata de Martinica, obtained the Juan Rulfo Prize,
sponsored by:
Radio France Internationale
Instituto Cervantes
Instituto de México en París
Casa de América Latina
Colegio de España
The newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique
Email: lidiabaru@fibertel.com.ar
Cover Ilustratión:
“Woman”, Digital drawing by Lidia Barugel
