Redemptions: A Costa Rican Novel

"SDSU Press's edition of Carlos Gagini's novel "El árbol enfermo" (here translated as "Redemptions") is a classic novel of Costa Rica, first published in 1918. This is the first English translation, and one of the few Central American novels available in English. Set in and around San José during the first years of the twentieth century, when the influence of the United States-economic, political, military, and cultural-was intensifying rapidly, "Redemptions" tells the story of the seduction and betrayal of a young Costa Rican woman (and symbolically of her country and region) by a North American entrepreneur. In the same genre as novels and essays by Uruguayan José Enrique Rodó and Mexican José Vasconcellos, "Redemptions" is a work of cultural nationalism which urges Costa Ricans to value their autonomy, to resist the encroachment of outside forces led by the ubiquitous, for the region, "Uncle Sam," and to recognize and solve their own problems. Originally published in 1985, it appears now in a second printing trade paperback from the original publisher San Diego State University Press with the original translation and introduction by E. Bradford Burns, and a new afterword by the Costa Rican contemporary novelist and literature professor Daniel Quirós. From the introduction by Dr. Daniel Quirós: "El árbol enfermo is, in fact, considered one of the very first anti-imperialist novels-the first being (maybe) El problema, by Guatemalan author Máximo Soto Hall. The center of this discussion is the "conquering" of Margarita by Mr. Ward, symbolic of Costa Rica being bullied and seduced by U.S. intervention and foreign capital. Examples of this symbolism are abundant in the novel and have already been discussed extensively in the introduction. Suffice it to say that at some point Gagini even chooses to name the chapter in which Mr. Ward finally confesses his love to Margarita at a lavish Fourth of July party as "Yankee Expansion.""