James Cañón

Dutch edition of Tales from the Town of Widows has just been released.

Het Dorp van de Weduwen (The village of widows) was released on Thursday, November 16th, during the prestigious Crossing Border Festival in The Hague. The novel, published by Meulenhoff, is part of a Dutch series called Literatura Latina, which includes world-known authors like García Márquez, Julio Cortázar, Carlos Fuentes and Juan Rulfo.

ales From the Town of Widows serves up rich stories of how a small town of very unique women cope after their husbands, dads, sons and brothers are forced to go fight in the Colombian civil war for a band of guerrillas, or be shot on the spot. A few men are killed for resisting, but the majority reluctantly head out into the chaos of that devastating conflict. The women left behind consider the guerrillas’ order a death sentence for their men. Their isolated, prosperous town rapidly decays, along with the morale of the inhabitants. Ultimately, those who stay devise a new, matriarchal society that, while far from Utopian, plays to the the residents’ strengths. Spliced between each chapter is a heartbreaking chronicle of a different man caught up in the 40+-year war. James Canon tells a story that is vivid, amusing, magical and heartbreaking. The offbeat, bittersweet tale makes for a good read.Tales from the Town of Widows and Chronicles from the Land of Men is abuy fioricet feast for anyone who relishes beautiful, intelligent writing infused with humor and humanity. Set against the backdrop of the Colombian civil war, it tells the story of a group of women living in a remote mountain village who are forced to fend for themselves after a band of Communist guerrillas descends on the village and forcibly recruits all the men, killing those who resist and leading the others away to fight for their cause. The women and children who are left behind must overcome their grief, fear, ignorance and passivity in order to survive and build a new society of their own on the patriarchal rubble of the old. The book embodies many contradictions without ever pulling at the seams. It is at once lyrical and brutal, subversive and idealistic, satirical and affecting, wickedly funny and profoundly sad. It tackles big issues—religion, politics, sexual politics—but its real power lies in the poignant and often comic humanity of its characters, with their hairy, muscular legs and rectangular bodies, their migrating warts and luxurious mustaches. And those are just the women: the widows, spinsters, prostitutes and virgins who inhabit the town of Mariquita. We are also given, in journalistic chronicles at the end of each chapter, brief and often shocking glimpses of the men and boys doomed to fight in the war, and the civilians caught up in its senseless violence. And when, at the end of the book, the men come home after their 16-year absence and try to reclaim their power and meridiamale prerogatives, things get really interesting… Tales from the Town of Widows is that rare achievement in literature, a unique and wholly original book.