By Night the Mountain Burns
- Authors
- Laurel, Juan Tomás Ávila
- Publisher
- And Other Stories
- Tags
- ministrants , plantations , novel , obiang , fishing , catholicism , exile , colonialism , canoe , translated fiction , annobón island , literary fiction , she-devil , dictatorship , insular community , arde el monte de noche , food shortages , cholera , hunger , west africa , san xuan , dissident , atlantic ocean , scarcity , kerosene , equatorial guinea , contemporary fiction , juan tomás ávila laurel , ocean god
- Date
- 2008-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
- Size
- 1.22 MB
- Lang
- en
*By Night The Mountain Burns* recounts the narrator’s childhood on a remote island off the West African coast, living with his mysterious grandfather, several mothers and no fathers. We learn of a dark chapter in the island’s history: a bush fire destroys the crops, then hundreds perish in a cholera outbreak. Superstition dominates: now the islanders must sacrifice their possessions to the enraged ocean god. What of their lives will they manage to save?
Whitmanesque in its lyrical evocation of the island, Ávila Laurel’s writing builds quietly, through the oral rhythms of traditional storytelling, into gripping drama worthy of an Achebe or a García Márquez.