Synopses & Reviews
Set during the 16th century tumult of exploration and first settlements along the Paraná River in Argentina,
River of Sorrows, based on actual events, is told by people marginalized and usually invisible in history. Mestizo soldier Blas de Acuña’s great unrequited love for the firey María Muratore prompts him to tell the story of María’s amazing exploits, but it’s not Blas but his second wife who insures that María is not forgotten by history. By constantly retelling the story, she creates a larger-than-life image that embraces all the women who kept the settlements alive, propped up the men and put loaded guns in their hands, and became the collective memory of a nation that, 450 years later, would be home to the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo.
Demitropulos Libertad, who died in July of 1998, is widely recognized as one of the finest Argentine writers of the twentieth century. Of her seven novels, River of Sorrows is the most acclaimed. Mary G. Berg’s translations of Latin American writers have been widely published. She teaches at Harvard University.
Synopsis
Set during the 16th century tumult of exploration and first settlements along the Paran River in Argentina,
River of Sorrows,based on actual events, is told by people marginalized and usually invisible in history. Mestizo soldier Blas de Acua's great unrequited love for the firey Mara Muratore prompts him to tell the story of Mara's amazing exploits, but it's not Blas but his second wife who insures that Mara is not forgotten by history. By constantly retelling the story, she creates a larger-than-life image that embraces all the women who kept the settlements alive, propped up the men and put loaded guns in their hands, and became the collective memory of a nation that, 450 years later, would be home to the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo.
Demitropulos Libertad,who died in July of 1998, is widely recognized as one of the finest Argentine writers of the twentieth century. Of her seven novels, River of Sorrowsis the most acclaimed. Mary G. Berg's translations of Latin American writers have been widely published. She teaches at Harvard University.
Synopsis
A woman dresses like a man and goes to war in this lyrical novel of love, ambition, deceit, courage and tragedy.
Synopsis
Fiction. RIVER OF SORROWS is set in the sixteenth century Argentina of the earliest Spanish settlements, when Juan de Garay came down the Parana River from Asuncion, Paraguay, to found the settlement of Santa Fe in 1573. After he left Santa Fe in early 1580, to reestablish the port of Buenos Aires, seven of the mestizos who had been among Santa Fe's first settlers rose up in rebellion against the Spanish town authorities. This is the historical setting where RIVER OF SORROWS begins, as an old soldier who came down the river with Garay remembers the hardships and violent injustices of the town's first years. The story is told in the voices of those who are voiceless in recorded history which, like the novel, is full of contradictory versions of what may have happened. Winner of the Buenos Aires Municipal First Prize in 1980 and the Boris Vian Prize in 1997.