Carazamba

Carazamba

Author	Virgilio Rodríguez Macal
Country	Guatemala
Language	Spanish
Genre	Mystery, Adventure

Carazamba is a 1949 Criollo novel by the Guatemalan writer Virgilio Rodríguez Macal. The novel is set during 1940s Guatemala.

Plot

The novel is a narrative describing Guatemala in the 1940s. The book takes the reader to different parts of the country, from the port city of Livingston, Izabal, to the jungle region of Petén, where much of the action occurs. The novel tells the story of the misfortunes of the nameless narrator and his butler Pedro, who come to know Carazamba and her secrets. This book, apart from containing much action and romance, is told in an emotional style and with the sense of the position towards the military government in power in Guatemala in the 1940s.

Characters

• Carazamba: A tropical woman of supernatural beauty. She is the center of the novel and the misfortunes of the narrator and his butler. With her youth surrounded by deaths (which are credited to her) and al. secret past, she is the most intense element of the novel.
• Narrator: The story is narrated in the first person. The narrator is a member of the bourgeoisie and was born in Quetzaltenango to a good family. He studied abroad. When the narrative begins, he is thirty years old and knows Carazamba through a chance encounter in Livingston, Izabal.
• Pedro: The narrator's loyal butler. In the course of the novel, this loyalty is tested on many occasions.