El informante nativo. (The Native Informer)

By staff -- Críticas, 12/15/2007

Guatemalan writer Flores here explores the relationship of Central American aborigines with urban, Westernized society, depicting their communities and their search for a way out of poverty. Early in his life, Viernes and his family leave Guatemala’s Lacandona rainforest and move to the city because Viernes’s father is convinced that to have a better life his son must become an archaeologist (he works at archaeological excavations). There, the family faces abject poverty, especially after Viernes’s mother gives birth to seven more children and his father dies. But Viernes’s innate thirst for knowledge earns him a scholarship from a mysterious corporation, the Global Museum, to finish his studies in archaeology. It is never clear what the corporation’s intentions are, but as all of the pre-Hispanic objects found in the Lacandona rainforest are removed and studied in foreign countries and universities, Viernes feels that he is a “native informer” betraying his cultural roots and is eventually forced to make a difficult decision. Unfortunately, even though this book sheds light on Central America’s aborigine communities through a mostly engaging plot, it fails to give its characters enough complexity. For instance, it is never explained how or why Viernes and his siblings are able to identify with their aborigine roots when they grew up in a completely Westernized and urban society, or how Viernes´s parents adapted culturally to their new home. Nonetheless, readers interested in social studies will certainly find this novel attractive. Recommended for bookstores and public libraries.—María E. Cruz, New York City