Little Red Riding Hood in the Red Light District (Paperback)

by Manlio Argueta (Author), Edward Waters Hood (Translator)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Salvadoran author Manlio Argueta spent almost 20 years exiled from his native land during the turbulent decades of the El Salvadoran civil war. During that time he completed this, his second novel, which went on to became a huge success in his own country. The hero of this allegorical tale is Alfonso, a young student turned radical who eventually abandons his clandestine printing press and joins the guerrilla forces in the countryside. Before that, however, Alfonso is involved in a passionate love affair with his own "Little Red Riding Hood," whom he leaves pregnant in "the Red Light District," the impoverished barrio where he lives, (and also the allegorical name for El Salvador's repressive regime) when he goes off to war. Told through letters, dialogs and narrative, Argueta's political novel is both a compelling work of art and a vivid portrait of the lives of ordinary people in 1970s El Salvador.

From Publishers Weekly
Argueta's charmingly elusive political romance, Caperucita en la zona roja, first appeared in 1978 and received the Casa de las Americas Prize; it is newly revised for this English translation. Alfonso, the "wolf," is a poet and university student who gradually becomes entangled in the revolution against El Salvador's military dictatorship of the late 1970s, whose abusive reign Argueta allegorizes as the "red light district." The plot unfolds in voice-shifting narrative backtracks, from the time Alfonso is still living "in the forest" with "Little Red Riding Hood," his young peasant lover Ant (who is referred to alternately in the second and third person), to his later departure, while Ant is pregnant, to become "a bandolier of liberation." Ant's trusting simplicity emerges from her letters to her lover, while the naively ferocious dedication of Alfonso's compa?eros, who attempt to disseminate literature by an illegal printing press, demonstrates the power of a poor, beleaguered people's spirit to prevail. Argueta's use of allegory is coy and not altogether successful; he unaccountably compares the "wolves" in question to Alfonso and his revolutionaries, rather than to the more logical choice of soldiers and military men. Still, through the voices of his characters, Argueta portrays the aspirations of an entire generation. "I've never thought about having a child as long as I live in this sublimation of a man disappeared," Alfonso muses, revealing the author's ability to maintain a lightness of tone while tackling serious political issues.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: Curbstone Press (August 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1880684322
• ISBN-13: 978-1880684320
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,439,042 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "to ask ourselves the same questions is to find the missing links that lead to the same cave...", November 22, 2008

By	e. dunsmoor "emilie" (united states) - See all my reviews

Argueta's Little Red Riding Hood in the Red Light district is a complex and many layered book.
It is an artistically brilliant and intellectually incisive document of human rights violations, the struggle for freedom and the ways in which people find to survive keeping hope, heart and meaning alive.
Argueta depicts the devastations of a specific place/time (El Salvador, 1970s) in Latin American history that succeeds, as well, as a universal story of the devastation of violation, the attempt to create meaning out of that devastation, the construction of identity, the strength of the human heart/spirit, and a fairy tale retelling that is a passionate and insightful exploration of what it is to be human.

Little Red Riding... won the Casa de las Americas in 1977.

The form/structure of the novel is complex; a double of the content. Form: layers, pieces, like short stories or fragments that fit with each other and grow in depth and complexity and meaning as one reads and re-reads. Different voices are woven together, using the testimonial style, giving voice to the main characters as well as minor characters, so giving voice to the unheard/silenced.

The narrative is written in the first, second and third person; and there are shifts in time (flashbacks etc. the book in non-linear) and point of view and style (letters, journal style entries, interview style, external dialogue/interior dialogue, surreal dream-like segments).
Argueta writes some scenes in a straightforward voice, a literal kind of reality that can be gritty, raw, dark,brutal; at other times the book reads like poetry that is dream-like, representational, the voice that seems to speak out of a myth that is symbolic, insightful, artistically visionary. The writing is honest, evocative, insightful, intellectual, artistic, original, thought-provoking.

I found the shifting voices and styles interesting and compelling. If you can let yourself take pleasure in each piece, and not need to have a complete grasp of the plot of the book at all times,trust the text, the story as an entire picture will take shape, the individual pieces will fall into place, there is a cohesive and coherent story here, the bits and pieces do add up. The book is intricate in form and in meaning. There is a lot of darkness and pain in the book, and light and hope too. It is not an easy,quick read; but a book to read slowly, to think about, and I think its very rewarding.

The content is a many nested Story. Argueta plays with many themes and works on many levels with layers of significant and thought-provoking meanings and stories within stories.
This compelling investigation into morality begins with the story of lovers, Alfonso and Ant,(characters/wolf,little red riding hood) set during the military dictatorship in El Salvador in the 1970s. (context/red light district)

The book works as both a specific testimony to this time and as a document and exploration/investigation of all extreme situations of abusive and violating powers that seek to destroy the freedoms of people and the struggles of people to fight against this.

Argueta says that his living and writing is a testament to his "brothers"; to all those who suffered and died, he honors them through his life and through his words. He remembers them and gives some meaning to their story.

Alfonso is not the usual hero in that not only is he shown to be imperfect and flawed; but he is most often the wolf when Argueta plays with the fairy tale imagery. Alfonso is the wolf hero, the hero who's own shadow or monster is acknowledged, witnessed, and needs to be kept in check.

and this is a piece of the hope I think Argueta offers us: that monstrousness exists, and that we all even possess it to some degree, but through a value of a kind of vigilant self awareness of the wolf/monster inside of us, we can overcome it, and protect ourselves and each other; that this, I think Argueta offers us, one of our best defenses to keep our own humanity and be in a position to protect others from human rights violations.
(from acknowledging of the true complexity of reality and identity comes our ability to act like true heros/heroines for liberty and human rights, and is the source of much strength.)

(note on fairy tale imagery) In Little Red Riding Hood in the Red Light District, Ant gives Alfonso a book of fairy tales to take away with him. Fairy tales are a kind of map; the original versions of many fairy tales contained heros/heroines that found their own freedom through an experience with adversity and a confrontation with their own imperfections. The fairy tale world is not always one of superficial and facile black and white extremes. Its a deeper, richer, more complicated rendering of humanity. I think this is part of why Argueta chose to use this fairy tale motif.

Little Red Riding Hood...explores wolves (monstrousness) in many guises. Alfonso is portrayed as the wolf in the love story with Ant, a younger girl, (as wolf is defined in Oxford English dictionary as a man that is sexual with a young girl; and Ant is young; Argueta plays with this meaning.) Later, the wolves are Alfonso and the student revolutionaries working on their press.
(and implied, the biggest wolves/monsters, are shown to be the oppressive political regime.)

So Argueta shows wolf/monster in us all, and the different degrees of monstrousness.
In this way he doesnt give us an overly simplistic world, and this expectation of an oft-depicted superficial universe where good is equated with moral etc. perfection and wears a white cape and goes off to fight evil is, I imagine, why the reviewer above is confused at Argueta's choice to render Alfonso and the resistance as the wolves.

I think this choice is part of power of the book. By rendering the imperfections in Alfonso and his comrades, Argueta makes them more substantial characters, and so when he/they are mistreated, we feel more for individuals that are more real to us as readers. We as readers, are in process of understanding and caring about flawed and even wolfish characters; we can feel their humanity and we feel more deeply that every human is imperfect and deserving of freedom and human rights.

I have chosen to focus much of this review on an aspect of the book that particularly interested me, (wolves/monsters etc.) but its really just a part of the many significant themes.

Little Red Riding...shows that freedom and love, and the essence that makes us human can survive destruction despite the devastation of physical and psychological terror. This is partly accomplished through our capacity to see ourselves in others, and partly through being seen/witnessed by others.(and other ways I dont have space to go into...)
Argueta shows that morality and human rights are grounded in our ability to connect with others, to see their point of view, to hear their story with the sense that it could be our own, to live through with them, and feel with them, this is what saves us from the monsters, and too, this is what could save us all from becoming monsters (wolves).