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TORN FROM THE NEST by Clorinda Matto de Turner

TORN FROM THE NEST

By

Pub Date: Oct. 1st, 1998
ISBN: 0195110064
Publisher: Oxford Univ.

Another volume in Oxford's Library of Latin America, this time a new translation of an accusatory 1889 novel about the oppression of Peru's Andean Indians by their Spanish ""masters."" Matto de Turner (1852-1909) was a successful newspaper editor and novelist--a woman of varied and impressive accomplishments. But this novel is weak: its only tone is outrage; its protagonists (a progressive, idealistic married couple) are improbably heroic and saintly; its stock supporting characters (a ""mixed"" Romeo and Juliet--like pair, a vicious parish priest, a blandly amoral colonial governor) thinner than the paper they're printed on. Of considerable documentary interest, but no more than that.