Río Muerto by Ricardo Silva Romero

Río Muerto by Ricardo Silva Romero

Columbian fiction

Original title – Rio Muerto

Translator – Victor Meadowcroft

Source – Review copy

I have been sent most of the books over time. World Editions has been doing some great books recently that may have gone under the radar; this is another example from them. This is from a prolific Colombian writer, Ricardo Silva Romero, one of the writers in the Hay festival collection, Bogota 39, which came out about fifteen years ago. He is a prolific writer, journalist and film critic. This is his first book to be published in English. Her has written 198 novels and a book about Woody Allen, which takes us back to a dark [=ast in his own country, the early 1990’s a time in which Columbia was very violent country to live in and this is told through the death of a mute called Salomón Palacois and the aftermath of this.

They soon took control of everything. A year before his execution-“They’ve killed Salomón the mute!” – there had occurred on the banks of the clear, gentle Río Chamí-which would then become known to all as the Río Muerto, the dead river-that “massacre of the collaborators,” or “culling of the hands,” in which the strongest black and white men in the settlement were tortured and shot, and the left hands of their wives and children lopped off and tossed into the current, for having continued to support the guerril-leros, in secret. Later, in the Plaza del Pan—the main square always referred to as the “Bread Square,” since it contains nothing but three bakeries, the enormous Pentecostal temple, and the five abarco trees that still haven’t been cut down-the now infamous Public Notice 00001 was circulated, leaving no room for doubt:

BLOQUE FÉNIX

CLEANUP CREW INFORMS:

The leader of the local gang that has killed Salomon

The title of this book in English is actually Dead River, and this is about a town, Belen del Chami, that is one of those small towns that isn’t on a map, and because of that, is a place where the local politicians and paramilitaries carry on as they want that is until they Kill Salomón and this makes his widow a string woman with a sharp tongue Hipólita is wanting to make sure that those that killed her man and widowed her and left her two sons with out a farther will finally be brought to justice. It is a tale of how a man who was a mute who only communicates via his yellow notebook with his nearest and dearest, is said by the local Paramilitary leader to be a snitch! Why was he really killed? This follows the town where the dead river runs through it soon after the death of her husband another man in the town is found dead in. the river this is a book about the corruption, murders and violence of this time in these town off the mmap where the rukle of law isn’t there but what happens when one woman faces up and tries to get justice.

Salomón pretended not to hear, because ignoring a friend’s nonsense is the brotherly thing to do. He noticed in the rearview mirror that a gang of snot-nosed kids was watching them. He heard a funereal song- an alabao-coming from the window of the house next door. An old man was yelling at a boy, “You’ll get yourself killed if you keep poking your snout where it don’t belong.” And then he set off, starting up the truck and taking the steep, green, uneven road to San Isidro, Antiquia, with that stubbornness of his, that pig-headedness, which led him to make the mistakes he made in his life but kept him calm the rest of the time. His friend, his pacha, would be safe in that settlement where the guerilla had entrenched itself. Get yourself to San Isido and see how you get on.

Is this what cause his death a mute being called a snitch seems madness

It is hard to believe it has taken so long for this writer to arrive in English. I think he was on the Bogota 39 list of fellow writers from his homeland, Juan Gabriel Vasquez, another writer who has written historical books and has had several books written. But now we have him in English for the first time, so let’s hope we get others. His latest is called Alp d’Huez, which, of course, is a famous place for being a stage on the Tour de France. Anyway, this book captures the world of the early 90s, a violent time in the framing of this village and the death of a mute man who was meant to be telling secrets about a gang. Add to this a cast of characters from corrupt police, vicars, gang members, and former lovers helping in her husband’s death, you see the wall that she has to break through and maybe make the death river be renamed! I loved this, it is a book that is told from the dead man’s point of view, and sees his lover fight for him. Do you have a favourite book from Latin America

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new year new start 2010 ,i m stu j allen i try to review every book i read here at winstonsdad also twitter news and things in the book world
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