Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma

Review
Reviewed Work(s): La rebelin de los nios by Cristina Peri Rossi
Review by: Jran Mjberg
Source: World Literature Today, Vol. 64, No. 1 (Winter, 1990), p. 79
Published by: Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40145828
Accessed: 09-09-2016 20:10 UTC
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SPANISH: FICTION 79

Cristina Peri Rossi. La rebelion de los nifios. Barcelona.

Seix Barral. 1988. 142 pages. 750 ptas.

Sergio Ramirez. Castigo divino. Managua. Nueva Nicaragua. 1988. 456 pages. $20 ($10 paper).

Sergio Ramirez is probably best known as vice-presiCristina Peri Rossi hails from Uruguay, but in 1971 she
dent of Nicaragua; however, he is also the author of
moved to Spain as an exile and for the last few years
has been residing in Sweden. She has published at short
least stories, essays, and novels. In his latest work, Castigo

seven books, including poems, short stories, and a divino,

novel. set in Leon, Nicaragua, he reveals after four hunShe worked first as a teacher and then as a political
dred pages that in 1964 he was secretary to Mariano Fiallos
journalist, collaborating with such writers as EduardoGil,
Galewho was the judge in the case of a young Guatemalan
ano, Juan Carlos Onetti, and Angel Rama. Feministlawyer
con- in the early 1930s. Judge Fiallos has used this case
cerns have also informed her work.
in his criminal-law course at the University of Leon, where
The stories contained in La rebelion de los nifios are
Ramirez was a student. Ramirez felt that the entire episode
fantastic tales which draw from surrealism, science fiction,
read like a novel, and so he combined extensive research
and political satire, with the occasional incorporationwith
of a fantasy to create the present work.
silent monologue. Peri Rossi has a masterly capacity for
Legal depositions, newspaper accounts, individual statements, and conversations - including the mesa maldita depicting exceptional psychological states and for imbuing
such descriptions with metaphysical overtones. In a support
way
the guilt or innocence of the young lawyer, Dr.
Oliverio Castafieda. He had moved to Leon in 1932, at a
her work is closely related to that of Julio Cortazar while
remaining essentially independent from it; when a volume
time when the movie Castigo divino (Divine Punishment)
of her stories was published in Stockholm, for example,
was
it popular. His black mourning clothes worn in memory
of his deceased mother gave him an aura of mystery; he was
included an enthusiastic introduction by Cortazar in which
he emphasized the fact that she is a woman whoan
has
attractive figure, especially for women who came to his
experienced both the hell of our world and the hellaid
ofunder varying adverse (for him) circumstances. Caswriting about the times in which we live. He also found
in
tafieda
was suspected of having earlier murdered his mother, the son of the Guatemalan dictator Ubico, and, most
her works a commendable intent to transfigure the actual
and historical - however tragic - into something fantastic,
recently in Leon, his young bride, his purported "fiancee"
Matilde,
and her father Carmen Contreras. Individuals and
both conserving its most exact meaning and manifesting
its
families alike take sides in the matter. Dr. Salmeron,
power on a new, higher level.
In some of her stories Peri Rossi paints a gruesome
contradicting the opinion of his former professor Dr. Darpicture of a society in which tyranny reigns and secret
bishire, presents technical medical information on how
police and soldiers carry out their terrifying duties
Castaneda
as
could have accomplished these last three
servants of repression and torture. In this appalling world
"strychnine murders," which were committed in fairly
children play a significant role, and the author is always
quick succession. By the time one is virtually convinced of
concerned with their destinies. Peri Rossi is a master of
Castaneda' s guilt, an unusual turn of events occurs. Graduone realizes the absolute control exercised by "elite"
style, even if her sentences are sometimes quite longally
and
complicated and their content rather abstract. There
is and those in power. The novel ends with most of
society
always a deeper meaning within her work, a message for
theall
residents evacuating the city due to the eruption of
her readers.
Cerro Negro on 28 December 1933 - divine punishment!
Joran Mjoberg
Ramirez is a master storyteller. Endless flashbacks and
Lund, Sweden
juxtapositions keep the reader on his toes. The characters,
many of them based on actual persons, are legion. Within a
serious recounting of events there are interpolated realistic
trivia, incidents which might be compared to the "knocking" scene in Macbeth. The overwhelming amount of dense
detail and documentary evidence is uniquely summarized
when the journalist Rosalio Usulutlan, upon being prohibited from publishing, invents a story of fifteen very brief
chapters using fictitious names but events exactly parellel-

ing the Castaneda episode. His story is published and

incidentally provides some orientation for the reader who

may have lost his way through the preceding maze of

information.

Several of Ramirez's works have already been issued in

English translation. Their success will undoubtedly cause
both him and his writings to be better known, as well they
should be.

Evelyn Uhrhan Irving

Tennessee Technological University

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