A PLACE CALLED MILAGRO DE LA PAZ
by Manlio Argueta & translated by Michael B. Miller
El Salvador’s best-known novelist (Little Red Riding Hood in the Red Light District, 1998, etc.) relates in both present action and extended flashback the life of middle-aged single mother Latina, who barely survives, during a time of violent political oppression, supporting her adolescent daughter and motherless young grandson by selling homegrown flowers and homemade clothing. These characters' separate detailed memories evoke both the terror that took the life of Latina’s eldest daughter Magdalena and their present straitened (and endangered) circumstances. Their plaintive yearning for the “miracle of peace,” which the name of their village ironically promises, provides the best moments in an otherwise unfortunately derivative novel: it's very nearly a rewrite of Alberto Moravia's famous Two Women.