Leopard in the Sun

By Laura Restrepo

Book Overview

Imagine the Sicilian history of The Godfather rewritten by Gabriel Garc?a M?rquez, or West Side Story reinterpreted by Isabel Allende, and you have a sense of Laura Restrepo's unforgettable novel of the making of Colombia's drug cartels. ???????? Written in a unique, mesmerizing style of questions and narratives--with the immediacy and color of oral tradition, Leopard in the Sun is an operatic Latin tragedy, complete with chorus of local gossips and popular legend. It begins with a fight over a woman, when Nando Barrag?n kills his best friend and cousin Adriano Monsalve in a passionate, drunken delirium. As a result, the wise family patriarch separates the two families forever--the Barrag?ns will hold sway over the city; the Monsalves the port. Each year, on the day known as the zeta, and only on that day, they will have the opportunity to avenge the previous year's deaths--and each year, the women are not yet out of their black mourning when a new round of deaths occurs. ???????? Nando Barrag?n sticks to the old way, leading his clan to ever-greater wealth, while living the simple peasant life in the village, womanizing far and wide, and trying to protect his brothers: the dandy Narciso, the innocent Arc?ngel, and the rogue Raca. Mani Monsalve tries to have it both ways, managing his family's black market affairs while trying to be accepted in legitimate society and keeping his ex-beauty queen wife happy. ???????? Every year on the zeta, Barrag?ns are killed by Monsalves and vice versa. The women suffer and devise increasingly elaborate strategies to protect their men. La Muda Barrag?n lovingly tends to the sequestered Arc?ngel. Alina Monsalve risks everything to protect her son from the primitive ways of his father's family. ???????? In this fiercely original, vibrantly dramatic novel, Laura Restrepo explores what happens when a primitive people, at the margins of society, justice, and capitalism, suddenly control an empire built on sophisticated weapons and vast quantities of cash.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0609603868
• ISBN13: 9780609603864
• Release Date: August 1999
• Publisher: Crown
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 2.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 1.0" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

Colombia de Laura Restrepo

Como siempre Laura nos brinda una obra de facil lectura, aunque llena de realismo magico y toques de brillantez literaria. Luara es actualmente, a mi humilde punto de vista, lo mejor de las letras colombianas.

Captivating literary soap opera!

One can't help but feel saddened at the feud between the Barragans and the Monsalves, which is the premise of this story. The characters are colorful and emotionally riveting... you actually feel sorry for Mani, who has to choose between loyalty to a long-held traditiion or the wishes of his expectant wife. I think Laura Restrepo is one of the most talented writers of our generation, and she is able to weave fact and fiction, fantasy and reality into an incredible tale of lust, greed, vengeance and filial duty. Utterly amazing story!

Powerful and Profound

This ought to be required reading for every politician in Washington. It explores the culture of Columbia and lays bare why we are fools to try to intervene in something we hardly understand.

Enjoyable

For those interested in reading about Colombian society, this work of fiction is a good read. Though not extremely profound, it is nevertheless entertaining.

a sheer delight

i approach magical realism with as much skepticism permitted this rational being, but leopard in the sun only hints at the unseen to provide a lyrical and haunting saga of colombia's own hatfield and mccoy blood feud. the writing is pitch perfect, the characters limned to symbolic fullness, the plot a potboiler. combine west side story, scarface, with some premodern juju, and you might arrive at the sense of this wonderful book.