De fronteras. (About Borders)
Reviewed by Carolyn Kost, Stevenson Sch. Lib., Pebble Beach, CA -- Críticas, 1/15/2008
Hernández, Claudia.
Guatemala: Piedra Santa, dist. by Books Beyond Borders. 2007. 122p. ISBN 978-99922-1-207-3. $18.95. pap. STORIES
In this slender collection, Hernández (El Salvador, 1975), winner of the Anna Seghers and Juan Rulfo awards, showcases her extraordinary imagination and talent as a short story writer. As in a surrealistic painting, the images in these stories persist in memory, but here they come alive and draw us into a reality in which unexpected encounters and bizarre interventions color the sad, broken, and profane world that would otherwise appear in shades of gray. Hernández’s characters are human, both altruistic and self-serving. Above all, they are adaptable as they deal rationally with the irrational situations in which they find themselves. Horror and gallows humor are prominently featured. A beloved grandfather is creatively disposed of, and misplaced cadavers find their way back to their next of kin with some assistance. We witness extraordinary ingenuity in one character’s singular cockroach trap and in a suicide’s method of reducing revulsion in her onlookers. Hernández has created a luminal and oniric world in which people manifest animalistic qualities and vice versa, angels and demons coexist with humans, and the linear progression of time is in question. Highly recommended purchase for bookstores and libraries.
View All Blogs
