The Villagers (Arcturus Books, AB 118) [Paperback]

Professor Jorge Icaza Ph.D. (Author), Bernard Dulsey (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 16, 1964 | Series: Arcturus Books, AB 118

The Villagers is a story of the ruthless exploitation and extermination of an Indian village of Ecuador by its greedy landlord. First published in 1934, it is here available for the first time in an authorized English translation.

 

A realistic tale in the best tradition of the novels of social protest of Zola, Dosto­evsky, José Eustasio Rivera, and the Mexican novels of the Revolution, The Villagers (Huasipungo) shocked and horrified its readers, and brought its author mingled censure and acclaim, when it was first published in 1934.

 

Deeply moving in the dramatic intensity of its relentless evolution and stark human suffering, Icaza’s novel has been translated into eleven foreign languages, including Russian and Chinese, and has gone through numerous editions in Spanish, including a revised and enlarged edition in 1953, on which this translation is based, but it has never before been authorized for translation into English. His first novel, but not his first published work, The Villagers is still considered by most critics as Icaza’s best, and it is widely acclaimed as one of the most significant works in contemporary Latin American literature.

 

Thirty years after its original publication in Ecuador, The Villagers still carries a powerful message for the contemporary world and an urgent warning. The conditions here portrayed prevail in these areas, even today. The Villagers is an indictment of the latifundista system and a caustic picture of the native worker who, with little expectation from life, finds himself a victim of an antiquated feudal system aided and abetted by a grasping clergy and an indifferent govern­ment.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, Spanish (translation)

About the Author

The author, Jorge Icaza, was born in 1906, in Quito, Ecuador, where he still lives and where he owns and manages a book store. A dramatist and a short-story writer as well as a novelist, Icaza is the author of over fifteen plays, collections of stories, and six novels. His most recent novel, El Chulla Romero y Flores, appeared in 1958.

 

The translator, Bernard M. Dulsey, is Professor of Spanish in the Uni­versity of Missouri at Kansas City. Mr. Dulsey, who received his doctorate from the University of Illinois, is prose fiction editor for Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia for the Handbook of Latin American Studies, the yearly publication of the Library of Congress, and a contributor to various scholarly journals in this country and abroad.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press; 1st edition (March 16, 1964)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809306530
• ISBN-13: 978-0809306534
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #203,198 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Icaza, comparable only to Tolstoy., October 11, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Villagers (Arcturus Books, AB 118) (Paperback)

Vile language, adultery, human suffering, courage, fear, love, guile--Icaza portrays TRUE HUMANITY in his first book The Villagers (Huasipungo),one of this century's greatest novels. As a professor of French and Spanish literature I have had many students ask me who Jorge Icaza was and why there are no other novels by Icaza available for them to read. The answer is that Jorge Icaza is one of the most complex writers in the Spanish language. Translating him is a task that no one wishes to take on because it may take them their whole lives to complete. It is sad because Icaza wrote some of the greatest novels of this century, ie., El Chulla Romero y Flores. As a translator of 4 novels, I myself am terrified of Icaza's prose. Jorge Icaza is the author of 7 novels (he left behind the draft for an 8th novel), 4 collections of short stories, and 7 plays. Bernard M. Dulsey did a great job in the translation. Of course he had help from Icaza himself, something which no translator can now have since Icaza died in 1972. Readers are fortunate to have this novel available in the English. Perhaps the greatest pre-Magic novel of Latin-America.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A searing novel of social protest, June 9, 2001

By 

Michael J. Mazza - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Villagers (Arcturus Books, AB 118) (Paperback)

"The Villagers," a novel by Jorge Icaza of Ecuador, was first published in 1934. It has been translated into English by Bernard Dulsey. I think of "The Villagers" as a sort of Ecuadoran counterpart to "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (the classic anti-slavery novel by United States author Harriet Beecher Stowe). Like that earlier novel, Icaza's book is an impassioned expose of racially-charged violence and oppression.

"The Villagers" tells the story of the exploitation of Ecuadoran Indians by whites who are intent on taking economic advantage of the Indians' homeland. Icaza paints a fascinating portrait of the conflicts and twisted connections among three major groups: Indians, whites, and "cholos" (those of mixed blood). The "gringos," or white North Americans, form a sinister fourth group that lurks menacingly behind the scenes of the unfolding drama.

The novel is full of vivid, graphic details--lice infestation, a worm-infected wound, rape, suffering, and death. Icaza mercilessly satirizes the lust and greed of the white landowner, Don Alfonso. Icaza also savagely critiques the complicity of the church (in the form of the hypocritical village priest) in the abuse of the Indians. And the author also exposes the insidious debt bondage that turns nominally "free" people into virtual slaves.

Some of the more villainous characters seem a bit one-dimensional, but in my opinion the many strengths of the book outweigh this flaw. "The Villagers" is a powerful work of social protest that deserves a wide readership.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars JORGE ICAZA HAD A DREAM, December 21, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Villagers (Arcturus Books, AB 118) (Paperback)

Jorge Icaza had a dream just like Martin Luther King, except his dream was not meant toward the United States, his dream was meant toward his people of Ecuador who, like people in the United States, are prejudiced against people who are of different races, and different economic statuses, etc. Jorge Icaza wrote his first novel The Villagers as the first step (in a series of steps) to make the dream come true. In it he portrays the Indian people of Ecuador as they truly are, as well as the landowners and government leaders, and the ways in which these ruthlessly treat the Indians. Religion plays a big role in this novel. Icaza leaves no prisoners, everyone in Ecuadorean society is criticized, including the mestizoes, persons of both European and American Indian descent. Icaza's 1934 novel is studied in many of the top universities of the United States in classes of Spanish, Comparative Literature, and Anthropology. I suggest this book to those who are interested in learning about Latin America and its peoples. I think people will be shocked and appalled. Icaza is by far the most important Indianist novelist Latin America ever brought forth, as well as one of Ecuador's most finest and important writers.