The Potbellied VirginUniversity of Texas Press, 2006 - 176 páginas In an unnamed town in the Ecuadorian Andes, a small wooden icon--La Virgen Pipona (the Potbellied Virgin)--conceals the documents that define the town's social history. That history recently has been dominated by the women of the Benavides family, a conservative clan and, not coincidentally, the caretakers of the Virgin. Their rivals are the Pandos, a family led by four old men who spend their days smoking in the park across from the Virgin's cathedral and offering revisionist versions of local and national events. When a military skirmish threatens the Virgin (and the secret in her famous belly), the Benavides women must scramble to preserve their place as local matriarchs--without alerting the old Pandos to the opportunity that might enable them to finally supplant their rivals. One of Ecuador's foremost contemporary writers, Alicia Yánez Cossío illuminates the complexity of Andean society by placing disenfranchised players such as women and Amerindians onstage with traditional powers such as the military and the church. Folk wisdom, exemplified in The Potbellied Virgin by the beautifully translated proverbs so popular with the Benavideses and the Pandos alike, stands up to historical record. Such inclusiveness ultimately allows the whole truths of Yánez Cossío's subjects to emerge. Only the second of her novels to be translated into English, The Potbellied Virgin (La cofradía del mullo del vestido de la Virgen Pipona) is a funny, focused portrait of Ecuadorian life in the twentieth century. |
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Alfaro altar Ambato arms arrive Bead begins bell Benavides women Benavideses bicycle bishop body candles Captain Quinteros carry cathedral Clarisa climb clothes color communist compadre crazy Doña Carmen Doña Elena door dress drought Ecuador Ecuadorian Eloy Alfaro everything eyes feels fiesta fight Figueroa finger five hundred sucres four old Pandos Gabriel García Moreno García Moreno girls give godmother goes Gown graffiti guambra Guayaquil hacienda hair handmaidens hands head hear huasipungo Indians Isidro Ayora Jorge Washington Pando José Gregorio Pando leave longer look Magdalena Benavides magistrate Mama Pacha Manuel Pando Marianita Pando Mass mattresses mestizo mother never night páramos pasillo Pasionaria pass Pelileo pharmacist play plaza poor Potbellied Virgin president priest Santiago Quito remember Romualdo sacristan shouts Sisterhood soldiers stones streets taffy talk tell thing thinks town's townsfolk Velasco Ibarra walking walls whole town Yánez