The Pond: Puerto Rico's 19th-Century Masterpiece - Softcover

Manuel Zeno-Gandia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 155876092X ISBN 13: 9781558760929

Publisher: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2009

Synopsis

Before the turn of the century, while the rich in Madrid, Paris and Rome capped their sumptuous dinners with sips of Puerto Rico's exquisite black café, the anemic men, women and children who harvested the precious crop lived in squalid huts and rarely saw a scrap of meat. Brutalized by grinding poverty, theirs was the harsh world of Manuel Zeno-Gandia's La Charca, published in 1894 and widely acknowledged as the first major novel to emerge from Puerto Rico. In the colloquial Spanish of Puerto Rico's hill-country, una charca is a stagnant pond, a body of brackish water. Puerto Rico's Spanish colonial society, says Zeno-Gandia, was an immense charca of human beings, oppressed by poverty, ignorance and disease. His bitter melodrama offers stark contrasts: the beautiful Puerto Rican countryside, a veritable Garden of Eden; yet within that "regal panorama," starved, diseased human beings clung desperately to life.

About this title

About the Author:

JUAN FLORES,Hunter College, is the author of numerous books, including From Bomba to Hip-Hop: Puerto Rican Culture and Latino Identity.

Manuel Zeno-Gandia (1855-1930) was a doctor, newspaper publisher, and author of scientific papers and novels.

Language Notes:

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Spanish

About this edition

• Publisher: Markus Wiener Publishers
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 155876092X
• ISBN 13: 9781558760929
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 222