Bøger af Mario Bencastro

ESPAÑOL: La mansión del olvido / Mario Bencastro / Premio Internacional del Libro Latino 2016 -Primer Lugar- "Mejor Novela de Ficción Histórica en Español". Luego de sus triunfos internacionales logrados con Disparo en la catedral, Odisea del Norte y Paraíso portátil, Mario Bencastro nos entrega la novela épica La mansión del olvido. Armando, el protagonista, regresa a Ausolia después de dos décadas de ausencia, con el objetivo de rescatar la memoria de su familia difunta cuyo paradero desconoce. La obra transcurre entre el reencuentro con lo familiar que yace doblemente sepultado: en el propio recuerdo y bajo la tierra. Ausolia es un pueblo conformado por dos comunidades: las familias acaudaladas que residen en las mansiones del centro y los habitantes de los barrios marginales. Dos ámbitos con sus propias realidades, protagonistas y leyendas, unidos por una red de lazos consanguíneos. "En la larga dimensión de la historia del lugar (quinientos años), la novela esboza el despojo de las tierras comunales indígenas, el paso del cultivo del añil al café, la matanza de 1932, el derecho de pernada de los hacendados, el militarismo, el despegue y el fin de la guerra civil, el éxodo migratorio hacia el norte." "La mansión del olvido asume la tarea de develar el secreto de una cultura nacional cuyas raíces se sustentan en el autoritarismo patriarcal... lo reinvierte en utopía social para el bienestar de sus conciudadanos y familiares, irreconocidos por su mismo padre. Tal es la escritura que Bencastro esculpe en la estela mítica de su nueva novela." -Rafael Lara-Martínez, "Premio Nacional de Cultura 2010", El Salvador. "La mansión del olvido es una epopeya nacional." -Nicolás Kanellos, Universidad de Houston, EEUU. www.MarioBencastro.org ENGLISH: La mansión del olvido by Mario Bencastro / 2016 International Latino Book Award -First Place- "Best Historical Fiction Novel in Spanish". After being highly praised internationally for works like "A shot in the Cathedral", "Odyssey to the North" and "Portable Paradise", Mario Bencastro brings us the epic novel La mansión del olvido. Armando, the protagonist, returns to Ausolia after twenty years with the intention of rescuing the memory of his deceased family whose resting place he doesn't know. The novel transpires while Armando faces his past which is doubly buried - in his memory and underground. Ausolia is populated by two distinct communities: the rich families that live in the mansions at the center of the town and the inhabitants of the marginal barrios. Two worlds with their own realities, protagonists and legends, but connected by a complicated network of blood relations. "In the long historical dimension of the place (five hundred years), the novel outlines the spoliation of the land from the aboriginal, the changing of indigo cultivation to coffee, the indigenous massacre of 1932, the practice of droit du seigneur by landowners, the military regime, the start and the end of the civil war, the migratory exodus to the North." "The novel La mansión del olvido assumes the task of revealing the secret of a national culture whose roots rest on a patriarchal authority... and converts it into social utopia for the benefit of its inhabitants and families, ignored by their father. Such is the writing that Bencastro inscribes on the mythical stele of his new novel." -Rafael Lara-Martínez, "Culture National Prize 2010", El Salvador. "La mansión del olvido is a national epic." -Nicolás Kanellos, University of Houston, USA. www.MarioBencastro.org

EL VUELO DE LA ALONDRA - Mario Bencastro Español: En esta intrigante novela el autor combina su experiencia de pintor con su inventiva literaria para ofrecernos una "ficción pictórica", en que la realidad y el arte convergen formando un mundo alucinante. Un experto en arte, Marc Douanier, es enviado a San Salvador por una subastadora de París para adquirir la obra de un artista local, que la crítica internacional califica como "magistral expresión del realismo fantástico del nuevo mundo" y está siendo solicitada por importantes galerías, museos y colecciones privadas que incrementan rápidamente su valor monetario. Para llevar a cabo su misión el experto debe sortear situaciones extrañas como pinturas robadas y falsificadas, y sectas secretas que dificultan su tarea, encima de que el país del artista se encuentra en una convulsión política y social que le recuerda la histórica revolución francesa que conmocionó a su propia tierra hace siglos. Marc Douanier trae el especial encargo de comprar una pintura del artista salvadoreño para la colección del Museo de Louvre, pero antes debe resolver un apremiante misterio: ¿Por qué los cuadros quedan en blanco? ¿Qué sucede con los personajes de las pinturas? ¿Se escapan ellos de su prisión de colores siguiendo al pueblo que lucha por liberarse de un opresivo sistema? El lema de Benjamín Cañas "Pinto la realidad como yo la imagino" colorea estas páginas, y sus personajes pictóricos cobran vida en este mural novelesco. "Benjamín Cañas fue un virtuoso, un pintor inédito, reflexivo, que dejó una herencia al arte latinoamericano y al mundo." -Bélgica Rodríguez, Directora del Museo de Arte de las Américas, Washington DC, EEUU, (1988-1994). www.MarioBencastro.org English: In this intriguing novel the author combines his experience as a painter with his literary inventiveness to offer us a "pictorial fiction", where reality and art converge to create a hallucinatory world. An art expert, Marc Douanier, is sent to San Salvador by an auction house from Paris to acquire paintings of a local artist, acclaimed by international critics as "a master of expression of the new world's fantastic realism", and whose work is being bought by important galleries, museums and private collections rapidly increasing its monetary value. To accomplish his mission, the expert must deal with difficult events such as stolen and falsified paintings, secret sects interfering in his assignment, on top of being in a land going through a political and social convulsion that reminds him of the historical French revolution that shocked his own country centuries ago. Marc Douanier also brings a special request from the Louvre Museum: to buy a painting by the Salvadoran artist for its collection. But he must first resolve a mystery: Why do the paintings suddenly turn completely white? What happens to the images in the paintings? Do they escape from their prison of colors following the local people that fight to free themselves from an oppressive regime? The artistic concept of Benjamin Cañas: "I paint reality as I imagine it" colors these pages, and in this literary mural his pictorial characters come to life. "Benjamin Cañas was a virtuoso, a fabulous painter, reflexive, that left a heritage to Latin American art and the world". -Bélgica Rodríguez, Director of the Art Museum of the Americas, Washington DC, USA, (1988-1994). www.MarioBencastro.org

ESPAÑOL: "Vato guanaco loco" narra la historia de un grupo musical compuesto por jóvenes que emigraron de El Salvador a los Estados Unidos. La banda musical se convierte en un gran éxito con sus canciones en "rap", que de forma alegre y humorística cantan historias de inmigrantes usando la jerga popular salvadoreña llamada "caliche", la cual combina palabras en español, inglés y náhuatl. El libro también incluye un amplio glosario de términos del "caliche" y su historia lingüística. ENGLISH: "Vato guanaco loco" is the story of a musical group formed by young people from El Salvador that immigrated to the United States. The music band becomes a great success with their rap songs that tell colorful and humorous stories of immigrants using the popular Salvadoran slang called "caliche", a jargon made up of Spanish, English and Náhuatl words. The book also includes an ample glossary of terms of the "caliche" slang and its linguistic history.

Waves of the East River By Mario Bencastro. From the author of A Shot in the Cathedral, Odyssey to the North, and Portable Paradise. Musical, great in scope, and anchored by vivid imagery, Waves of the East River recounts the lyrical passage through lower Manhattan of an exile who, upon being freed at a Brooklyn pier, receives three shares of Fortune, Drama and Faith, which he must invest in Wall Street. Waves of the East River revives the author's memories of the river and the financial district, which inspired him to create this poetic and personal mythology. Waves of the East River is a poem in sixteen cantos that combines historic places and events to bring to life fictitious and biblical characters, with epigraphs that evoke the homage that Walt Whitman and Federico García Lorca paid to the East River. "Waves of the East River is an extraordinary text that manages to convene a richness of registers and the many voices of Whitman." - Rei Berroa, George Mason University, USA.

Olas del East River - Mario Bencastro Del autor de Disparo en la catedral, Odisea del norte y La mansión del olvido. Musical, de amplio alcance estético y conceptual, y anclado en una vívida imaginación, Olas del East River recita la travesía lírica por el bajo Manhattan de Nueva York de un exiliado, a cuyo desembarco en los muelles de Brooklyn, recibe tres acciones valoradas en Fortuna, Drama y Fe, que deberá invertir según su ingenio en Wall Street. Olas del East River revive la memoria del autor del río y el distrito financiero, la cual lo inspiró a crear esta mitología personal y poética. Poema en veintiséis cantos, Olas del East River combina lugares y acontecimientos históricos con personajes ficticios y bíblicos, con epígrafes que reflejan el homenaje que Walt Whitman y Federico García Lorca le rindieron al East River. "Olas del East River es un texto extraordinario por la riqueza de sus registros y las voces whitmanianas que logra convocar." -Rei Berroa, George Mason University, EE. UU.

In this poignant bilingual picture book, a boy remembers his first present, "a little train crossing / the mountain of my pillow / over a valley on my bed." There's even a girl who looks like his sister waving happily from the window! Years later, after his parents have gone far away in search of work and a better future, the boy rides in a real train to join his family. This one is loaded with hundreds of children traveling alone, just like him. There are frightening strangers, others along the way who want to jump on and, scariest of all, a boy who almost falls off the roof because he can't stay awake any longer. When the train finally arrives at its destination, everyone jumps off and the boy begs "the moon to shine, / to light up the border" so he can cross and find his mother. This moving, poetic story by award-winning Salvadoran author Mario Bencastro touches on the difficult journey north many Central American children make in hopes of finding their parents and a better life.