Recollections of Things to Come
by Elena Garro, translated by Ruth L.C. Simms, illustrated by Alberto Beltrán
Buy on AmazonI think it’s one of the most beautiful novels ever written. It’s a love story and also the story of a territory and a very specific moment in the life of the country. It is a metaphor of desolation and despair, where each element is imbued with a very subtle magic, made of voices and memories, above all women’s. In Recollections of Things to Come , the feminine is resistance to a violent, collapsing world. Sure! I think that for the Latin American novel magic realism operated in that period as an excellent strategy to write fantasy in a particular way, with narrative elements that have prevailed in Latin cultures, such as hyperbole or syncretism between indigenous and Christian religious beliefs. The same thing happens in my head when I imagine Tita’s tears filling a five-kilo sack to be used for cooking in Like Water for Chocolate , as when I read traditional fairy stories about a magic tablecloth that serves food, a flask of oil that never runs out, or boots for walking seven leagues. I believe in both equally and with my whole soul.