Sol

In the tradition of his Latin American peers, Márquez, Borges, and Fuentes, Mario Satz uses the form of the novel-along with a strong lyrical voice-to create a fantasy, a counter-reality, another world to rival the chaotic real world of South America. Although SOL is set in many places around the globe, its real locale is always the brilliant mind of the author/narrator. The book opens with a striking dream vision on the heights of Machu Picchu; from there the narrator, Mario, unfolds his tale of passion and sacrifice, reconstructing the kaleidoscope of his quixotic life. It is the story of the search that an enigmatic, a schizophrenic, Peruvian pythoness-figure with whom Mario has fallen in love forces upon him: a quest for the meaning of the death of her strange, unbalanced brother who has perhaps died at the hands of a secret, mysterious, anti-Jewish Christian sect. In SOL, Mario recreates his beloved, Shahar, ultimately reducing his obsessive love for her to its proper perspective: For all its searing intensity, it is, after all, only one small heartbeat of the universe.

Text: English, Spanish (translation)