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An elderly retired teacher is caught up in drug wars which slowly destroy his small town.
New Directions
September 2009
On Sale: September 15, 2009
224 pages ISBN: 0811218643 EAN: 9780811218641 Paperback
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Fiction Family Life
Ismail, the profesor, is a retired teacher in a
small Colombian
town where he passes the days pretending to pick oranges while
spying on his neighbor Geraldina as she lies naked in the shade
of a ceiba tree on a red floral quilt. The garden burns with
sunlight;
the macaws laugh sweetly. Otilia, Ismail's wife, is ashamed of
his peeping and suggests that he pay a visit to Father Albornoz. Instead, Ismail wanders the town visiting old friends, plagued
by a tangle of secret memories: Where have I existed these
years? I answer myself: up on the wall, peering over. When
the armies slowly arrive, the profesor's reveries are
gradually taken over by a living hell. His wife disappears and
he must find her. We learn that not only gentle, grassy
hillsides
surround San José but landmines and coca fields. The reader is
soon engulfed by the violence of Rosero's narrative that is
touched
not only with a deep sadness, but an extraordinary tenderness.
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