El gesto

by Gastïn Suïrez, Juan Carlos Salazar (Introduction), Edward H. Friedman (Introduction)

Overview

El Gesto is a collection of eight short stories in which Gastón Suárez delves into the depths of the inner life of his characters, exposing their weaknesses, fears, hidden desires, resentments and frustrations. The prologue of Juan Carlos Salazar describes El Gesto as a more psychological book than his previous works and, therefore, more universal. If in his prior books the author sees the protagonists from the outside, in El Gesto he does so from within, positioning himself as one of his characters. Acute observer of the contradictions and miseries of men. Thus, in the words of the critic Óscar Rivera-Rodas, he is a scrutinizer of "psychological introversion".

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781666274882
Publisher:	Barnes & Noble Press
Publication date:	09/22/2021
Series:	Cuentos , #1
Edition description:	3rd ed.
Pages:	134
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.31(d)
Language:	Spanish

About the Author

Gastón Suárez was a Bolivian novelist and dramatist. Suárez was born in the town of Tupiza in the southern part of Bolivia in 1929.

A self-taught writer, Suárez abandoned elementary school at third grade, following a traumatizing event in which his teacher suffered an epilepsy attack while reading for him. Ironically, his mother, also a rural teacher, accepted to home-school him. When he was ten, after reading Dick Sand, A Captain at Fifteen by Jules Verne and Jerry of the Islands by Jack London he swore himself to become, some day, a writer.

By the end of the 1950s he decides to fulfill his promise. He quits his job as a banking employee from the Bolivian Mining Bank and buys a truck to travel and know his country in depth. Throughout almost two years of long trips all over Bolivia, he writes simultaneously several of his short stories and finalizes the first draft of his play Vértigo. A few months later he decides to dedicate fully to write literature and make a living out of it.

He performed diverse activities: railroader, rural teacher, miner, bank employee, truck driver, journalist, etc. He had the opportunity to live and feel the Bolivian life in its diverse social layers. This is reflected with a particular vision in the subjects he writes most about: urban life, the country and the mines.

Amongst his works also stands out "The Gesture" (El Gesto) another book of short stories from which "The stranger and the silver candelabrum (El forastero y el candelabro de plata)" and "A leaf in the wind" (Hoja al viento) are the most outstanding.

His most famous novel is Mallko, published in 1974. It narrates the life of a humanized Condor ("a Mallko" as it is named in the Amerindian language Aymara). The novel has elements of fiction and magic realism, but ends up being much more than that. It is at the same time a vivid, real and crude narration of the life of the Andean man. It is a philosophical reflection on the man's faith of meeting his own destiny and the need to survive in isolation and constant need. It is virtually a compulsory text in Bolivia, Spain and in the signatory countries of the Andean Zone. In 1976 Mallko was included in the Honour List of the Hans Christian Andersen Award and described as "an exceptional example of literature with international importance".

Suárez died in the city of La Paz in November 1984, the victim of a sudden heart failure.

Editorial Reviews

"... el interés de sus relatos es atrapador, su estilo vibra y se funde dentro de una tónica contemporánea, que hace trascender a un plano de universalidad los temas que trata. Un libro de relatos intensos, humanos..."

Prólogo Vigilia para el último viaje - Sergio Suarez-Figueroa

"... Suárez conserva su tradición de escritor que se nutre con los elementos v con el drama de la realidad circundante. Utiliza, en todo caso, un lenguaje que conviene a los temas que trata. No se ha dejado influenciar por el juego de planos y la distorsión del tiempo de que la narrativa americana abusó, después del triunfo de Vargas Llosa, Carlos Fuentes, Julio Cortazar, etc... Suárez tiene una narración clara, sin vericuetos morbosos..."

Revista Clarín

"... a Gastón Suárez, como a Bruce Marshall, solo les basta aumentar un poco el volumen o rebajarlo, para que los mismos personajes se muestren en su otro cincuenta por ciento no visible, nítidamente, puesto que él no es un artista que demuestra, si es que se debe llamar artista, al titiritero que sin empacho hace aparecer sus hábiles manos. La prueba está en la mayor sinceridad o mayor zona de luz en los actos de la gente humilde como en 'Hoja al viento'..."

Periódico Presencia - Jaime Nisttahuz

"...Suárez va más allá del simple hecho, más allá de la anécdota y descubre sutílmente situaciones trascendentes. Agudo observador del comportamiento humano, es el escritor de la introversión psicológica más destacado de la nueva promoción de narradores bolivianos..."

La narrativa boliviana. Aproximación a sus aspectos formales - Oscar Rivera-Rodas

"... sus cuentos, ampliamente antologados, cubren una amplia gama de temas, desde la psicología del amor hasta los problemas de los mineros. Parecen profundamente sentidos, pero están escritos con gran atención a la técnica. 'Los hermanos', por ejemplo, alterna entre el diálogo unilateral de un personaje y la intervención de un narrador, sin sacrificar un fuerte nivel de emoción..."

El Cuento: Arte y Análisis - Edward H. Friedman