My Uruguay: Vignettes from a Way of Life

MY URUGUAY Vignettes from a Way of Life By Tony Beckwith “My Uruguay” is a collection of fifty short-short stories set in the 1950s and 1960s. Part coming-of-age memoir, part meditation on life in a multicultural environment, the universal themes running through these vignettes will resonate with readers as the narrative describes a way of life that at times, though lived elsewhere, seems comfortably familiar. Uruguay is a small Spanish-speaking country on the Atlantic coast of South America. The author grew up there, in the seaside city of Montevideo, where his family was part of a close-knit expat community. His reminiscences of those formative years in a seemingly magical time and place explore the whims and foibles of a community that was, in many ways, more British than the British, at a time when the sun was already setting on the former empire. Traditions brought from the old country are a vital part of the community’s identity, but so is the need to live in the present as members of a cosmopolitan Uruguayan society. “We are British at heart,” says the author’s father in one story, “but our British experience is secondhand. We are cultural hybrids, very fortunate to be enjoying the best of both worlds in a place like Uruguay.” In the fast-moving world of the twenty-first century, it often feels as though there isn’t enough time to read lengthy works of literature at a leisurely pace as people once did. This book provides the ideal solution for those with busy lives and limited time on their hands; each of these brief vignettes can be enjoyed as a complete, uninterrupted experience in just a few minutes. But the writing is so compelling and the stories so vividly told that readers will find it hard to stop at just one.