Odyssey to the north /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Bencastro, Mario.
Uniform title:Odisea al norte. English
Imprint:Houston, TX : Arte Público Press, 1998.
Description:192 p. ; 22 cm.
Language:English
Subject:
Format: Print Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/3663874
Hidden Bibliographic Details
Other authors / contributors:Rascón, Susan Giersbach.
ISBN:1558852565 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

The even-tempered prose of this quietly resolute political novel gives voice to a generation of Central American immigrants. The Salvadoran protagonist, Calixto, flees his native country, where he faces imprisonment for alleged treason. The dangerous journey north toward Washington, D.C., which provides the novel's dramatic tension, emerges through a series of interpolated flashbacks. Through an artful collage of the conversations between Calixto and his friends, news reports, courtroom transcripts, love letters and anecdotes, Bencastro (The Tree of Life: Stories of Civil War) documents the hardships Calixto suffers upon arriving in the promised land‘and finding it rampantly racist. Unpretentious and reportorial, Bencastro's tone is welcomely understated‘and his message all the more powerful for it. (Dec.) FYI: Bencastro's earlier novels have been finalists in both the Novedades y Diana International Literary Prize competition and the Felipe Trigo Literary Prize competition. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review

A heartfelt story of political oppression and exile from the Salvadoran author of A Shot in the Dark: Stories of the Civil War and The Tree of Life. In a simple omniscient narrative fleshed out with various documentary devices (such as newspaper stories, court transcripts, and letters home), Bencastro tells the affecting tale of Calixto, designated an enemy of El Salvador's ruling elite, who escapes to Washington, D.C., only to find in that citadel of freedom a pervasive racism no less cruel than the more open hostility rampant in his homeland. Bencastro's directness and understated compassion make Calixto's disillusionment credible and quite moving. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review


Review by Kirkus Book Review