A Place Called Milagro de la Paz.

• Author: Mujica, Barbara
• Position: Review

A Place Called Milagro de la Paz, by Manlio Argueta. Trans., Michael B. Miller. Willimantic, CT: Curbstone, 2000.

Manlio Argueta won international acclaim with The Valley of the Hammocks (1970), Little Red Riding Hood in the Red Light District (1978), One Day of Life (1980), and Cuzcatlan, Where the Southern Sea Beats (1986). In A Place Called Milagro de la Paz, perhaps his most poetic novel, Argueta continues his depiction of life among the common people, this time focusing on the strength and resilience of the women of the impoverished towns of his native El Salvador.

The story revolves around Latina, a character reputedly inspired by Argueta's mother, to whom he dedicates the book. Latina lives with her two daughters, Magdalena and Crista, in a shack on a rundown street in the village of Milagro de la Paz (Miracle of Peace), so named because the nearby volcano, in spite of frequent eruptions, has always spared it. The women eke out a living selling the clothes that Latina makes and the roses that Magdalena grows.

The volcano--forever threatening to erupt and destroy the town--is emblematic of ever-present danger. Milagro de la Paz is a place besieged by natural, unnatural, and supernatural forces. Armed soldiers occupy the streets. At night, seres desconocidos, or "unknowns," attack village residents, leaving the odor of gunpowder on their bodies and a ring of wounds resembling coyote bites around theft necks. Ghosts linger in the shadows. Earthquakes menace constantly. Real coyotes, opossums, buzzards, spiders, termites, and red ants threaten people and possessions. Yet, Latina, the archetypal Latin woman, carries on.

In spite of Latina's vigilance, Magdalena gets pregnant by a neighbor boy named Nicolas. Shortly afterward, the family dog turns up dead, its body smelling of gunpowder and its neck encircled by coyote bites. Then Magdalena is murdered, her corpse displaying the same telltale signs as the dog's. Nicolas is also found dead, dangling from the well. The reasons for the slayings are never clear, but no reasons are necessary. In Milagro de la Paz, people routinely perish without explanation. Death is a reality the inhabitants learn to live with.

One day, a little girl named Lluvia (Rain) appears unexpectedly in Latina's house, her braids bound in ribbons that look like butterflies and, indeed, sometimes seem to be butterflies. Latina takes her for a reincarnation of Magdalena and asks her to stay. Later, Crista seduces a...