¿Sólo amaste en mí la pureza del linaje, la cercanía del parentesco y la continuidad de las costumbres? Dime que no, no seas mezquino, dime que también mi cuerpo fue pasto de tu codicia y que yo también te tenté a la sombra del guayabo.

Doña Inés contra el olvido (Doña Inés vs Oblivion) is something between a magic realism novel and a chronicle of Venezuela. Doña Inés, the heiress of one of the largest haciendas from colonial times in Venezuela, is obsessed with recovering a piece of land that her husband supposedly gave as a gift to Juan del Rosario, a freed slave from their hacienda so that he could settle a town for the freed slaves in the area. Doña Inés dies, and it is actually her ghost, who cannot rest because of this land issue, that keeps telling the story. The book spans for almost 300 years, from the early XVIII century until 1985, following Inés’ descendants and other stories of people involved with her family or land.

Although some (few) fragments of the book are a bit tedious, it almost feels like a history lesson, Ana Teresa Torres achieves to recount the history of her country in an interesting and (sometimes) funny way: from the point of view of a woman that was born in the colonial times. Doña Inés is not a likable character, she is racist, resentful and petty. She is also a bit unreliable as a narrator since she’s clearly biased against anyone that does any harm to her family and has many strong prejudices, so even though the historical facts are there, the character’s actions are judged from her perspective (which might actually be true about any chronicler). Torres takes us from the times of the colony to the violent period of Independence, the dictatorship(s), and finally the oil boom and democratic era of the XX century. Moving from story to story she lets us see how people and values changed throughout time and how they were affected by the historical events in the country.

This book was not an easy read. As I mentioned before, sometimes it felt like reading a history book. Also, the first part was exhausting, following the bureaucratic dealings of the land titles; I could hardly deal with how racist and bitter Doña Inés was. I almost stopped reading at some point. However, as the story moves forward, where Doña Inés is not so involved, there are some beautiful fragments, characters, and stories that I really enjoyed. In the end, I’m glad I got to finish the book, but I was definitely expecting more.

About Ana Teresa Torres

Ana Teresa Torres was born in Caracas in 1945. She majored in psychology, a career she abandoned to become a writer.  She is one of the most prominent writers in Venezuela. Doña Inés vs Oblivion was her first novel and it won several prizes. It is the only book written by a Venezuelan woman translated to English (that I know of).

Other books written by Venezuelan women we recommend:

We just recommend books we’ve read!

Venezuelan initiatives and projects that support and empower girls and women

Mujeres al límite 2019 Report

Since 2014, numerous civil society organizations, representatives of academia, trade unions and qualified voices in various fields, warned of that that has materialized today in Venezuela: a complex humanitarian emergency caused by the political situation of the country. This report is the work of several women’s associations, in it, they aim to portray how this humanitarian emergency affects women in Venezuela. It is a comprehensive report that has as a purpose to “to provide diagnoses that serve as the basis for designing responses that are consistent with the realities and needs of Venezuelan women, girls, and adolescents in the midst of the complex humanitarian emergency. And on the other hand, to constitute a repository for the historical memory of a period in which women’s rights observed an unprecedented setback, which has placed them in some situations only comparable to those experienced in the nineteenth century, all under the protection of a supposed, but falsely, feminist official narrative.”