BRUNA AND HER SISTERS IN THE SLEEPING CITY

Bruna And Her Sisters In The Sleeping City ($24.95; Dec.; 240 pp.; 0-8101-1408-9): A deft allegorization of protagonist Bruna Catovil’s struggles to escape her “mad” family’s (and culture’s) ignorance and insularity gradually emerges from Coss°o’s magical-realist debut fiction (originally published in 1973 and now the first of her novels to be translated into English). It’s the story of an outcast clan living in the Ecuadorian mountains, which exert a mysterious soporific influence. Interwoven tales of such colorful eccentrics as insanely pious Aunt Catalina; reclusive Jeronimo, notorious for “his dedication to raising frogs”; and “Carmela the Tearful” (who becomes, simultaneously, bride and widow) enliven a rich episodic narrative that goes from strength to strength, all the while merrily skewering Latin American supernaturalism, machismo, and self-importance.