Bruna and Her Sisters in the Sleeping City

by Alicia Yánez Cossío, Kenneth J.A. Wishnia (Translation)

This magical novel, available in English for the first time, chronicles the history of Bruna and her wealthy, eccentric family, a clan with a centuries-long history in the somnolent mountains of northern Ecuador. Bruna's relatives spend their waking hours reassembling the family tree, appropriating and casting off relations and ancestors at will. As she pieces together her family history, Bruna begins to create her own identity, emerging from the shadow of history and coming to grips with the struggles of her family and nation to achieve a balance between the best of the old and the new.

Genres: Fiction, Magical Realism, 20th Century, The Americas, Latin American, Spanish Literature

228 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 1973

About the author

Alicia Yánez Cossío (Quito, December 10, 1929) is a prominent Ecuadorian poet, novelist and journalist.

Alicia Yánez Cossío is one of the leading figures of Ecuadorian and Latin American literature, and is the first person of Ecuador to win the Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz Prize (1996). In 2008 she received Ecuador's highest prize in Literature, the "Premio Eugenio Espejo" for her lifetime of work.

Reviews

[Rubén Mánuel-Briseño · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una maravillosa novela de realismo mágico. La virtuosidad de Alicia para transportarte a un mundo y época repleta de sensaciones es realmente magistral.

Lástima de la edición de Colección Antares con múltiples errores de impresión. Porque los comentarios de análisis son muy buenos. No sugiero leer esta edición.

[Françoise · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great magical realism book by one of the best Ecuadorian authors (in my opinion). Several people have said it has influence from Gabriel García Márquez' 100 years of solitude, but this novel was actually finished before.

It tells the story of Bruna and her family from 5-6 generations prior, and how they've tried to erase their indigenous identity and 'whiten' their surname in each generation. Tackles the place women have taken in society and how they've conformed to society, but also how superstition, folkore and spirituality shapes their view of their world. It's a great novel about the Ecuadorian and even general latinamerican perspective, where having european ancestry is seen as better. It's plagued with cultural references I recognize in my own family, but I think even foreigners who aren't familiar with them will enjoy it

Sadly, the edition Antares I read it from has quite a few grammatical mistakes, but nevertheless didn't stop me from reading it.

If you're looking for a magical realism book, look no further.

[Freddy Veloz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tras la intrincada historia de la familia Catovil, Bruna, soroche y los tíos encierra una crítica mordaz contra el rechazo a las raíces propias, el machismo y el curuchupismo. La novela nos narra, con dosis efectivas de lirismo y realismo mágico, la saga familiar de los Catovil, a medida que Bruna revive las historias de sus antepasados, descubriendo los rezagos de su tatarabuela indígena, obligada a casarse con un blanco y cuya identidad luego fue borrada por su familia, y de un sinnúmero de familiares atrapados entre las costumbres y la falsa moral de una ciudad condenada donde pareciera estar prohibido el libre desarrollo personal.

Alicia Yánez nos muestra un conjunto de individuos atrapados entre sus deseos y los barrotes en que la sociedad los encerraba, y donde eran siempre las mujeres las que se llevaban la peor parte. Un indiscutible éxito narrativo.

[Rudy · Rating 3 out of 5]

La historia me recordó bastante a la casa de los espíritus, no por su trama como tal, sino por el cómo a pesar de tener un personaje principal se va desentrañando la historia familiar.
Le pongo 3 estrellas porque a pesar de que disfruté la lectura y es muestra partes claramente pegadas a la realidad, hay capítulos, específicamente en el que el personaje interactúa con un gato, que me pareció innecesario y bastante desagradable.
Fuera de eso, una muy buena historia y con una cantidad de personajes bastante variopintos.

[Miguel Aguilar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Más allá de la maestría con que Alicia Yánez maneja el género de realismo mágico en que esta novela se encuadra, quisiera quedarme con la maestría que la autora posee para crear metáforas geniales una tras otra; la virtud de su poesía es exquisita. Por otro lado, la crítica a la religión como propagadora del machismo, el racismo y otros vicios que retrasan a los pueblos en general es no solo contundente pero genialmente estructurada de principio a fin. Magnífica obra.

[Spiegel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book, right up there with the other magical realists. Poor Bruna ends up looking like a serial killer once we learn about her childhood, hah. What bothered me, though, were the undignified deaths in the farm (which to me undoes the description of racism and hipocrisy in the rest of the book). And I could have done with less chapters about Tia Catalina.

[QQJJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bruna is the last of the family line, and 'her sisters' are mostly her older female relatives, although there are some parts that focus on various uncles as well. Full of vivid language that paints the scene, but to me read more as a series of vignettes. Sometimes it took a while to get your bearings as it jumped from focusing on one character or another, but not in a logical (to me) chronology. More than once we followed a character through their lifespan, only to return to an earlier time to focus on another, I think, but also some characters stuck around as ghosts, so it was hard to sort out what came first, last, and what was happening simultaneously in characters' lives, but sequentially in our reading. Sometimes you could ground a section in a particular time period through the text (modern, possibly being early 1970s when it was written), other parts seemed like they could have happened anytime over several centuries. I could have used a family tree to help with both chronology and all the Tias with names starting with C.

Magical realism and ghosts, but also weird personality quirks (or mental illness) abound. Touches on themes of indigeneity, colonialism, extreme religiosity. Loved getting this peek into Ecuador.

Minor spoiler...


Bruna is a creepy little girl.

[Rhoda · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is the story of Bruna and her family, going back a few generations. Bruna’s grandmother was half Indian and half Spanish and the family tried to erase their indigenous identity over time, as having European ancestry was far more prestigious.

In addition to this, many of the family members are quite mad, both with the sleep-inducing mountain sickness common to their city in northern Ecuador, or just generally matchbox collecting mad (a reference to one of the characters in the story).

On paper, this books sounds like it should be right up my alley, but I found the writing so incredibly difficult to enter and find a way into. Some chapters seemed like short stories dedicated to a particular character and others appeared to link a story together. Conversation was difficult to follow, as I never really knew if it was characters, ghosts or even occasionally cats talking (I feel as mad as the characters writing that 😆).

Despite having many quirky characters, there were none that I could really latch on to in any meaningful way and the whole exercise kind of felt like I too had soroche (the sleeping sickness). There were a few moments I really enjoyed, but overall this was just hard going and not particularly engaging, despite really hoping it would be. ⭐️⭐️/5

[Pizpiireta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Esta fue una lectura hermosa sobre las poéticos de lo íntimo, la vida familiar y el peso de la memoria en nuestras espaldas. Camelia Catovil como un quijote femenino me ha hecho pensar en mis tíos y la locura de ser la primera nieta en una familia ecuatoriana.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Qué pena que es tan difícil encontrar la obra de Yáñez Cossio en Mexico y Estados Unidos! Me encantaban las historias de Bruna y su familia, y aún más la manera en que escribe Yáñez Cossio. Sumamente perfecta lectura para días de vacaciones.

[Viktor Con K · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sublime

[Guisella Vulgarin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un hervidero de ambiciones…

[Via Fran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bruna te enseña la forma más eficaz para sobrevivir al soroche. Los tíos te enseñan lo que es ser víctima y victimario ena ciudad dormida.

[Heather(Gibby) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This Book is set up like a collection of short stories about Bruna and her ancestors and the city in which they lived. The stories are linked together as they all centre around the same family, but there is no ongoing plot throughout the book. It reads more like a collection of family parables or folktales. There is also quite a bit of magical realism in the book which has never really appealed to me, but at the same time it has a unique sense of charm. Here is one example:

She was born wearing a white woolen smock that she made herself insider her mother's belly when her mother involuntarily swallowed some dust balls..

I think this may be one of those books that I enjoy more in hindsight, than while actually reading it.

[Theut · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stelle e 1/2
Il paragone con Cent'anni di solitudine mi sembra un po' azzardato ma il filone è quello del realismo magico. La storia, quasi esclusivamente al femminile, di una famiglia dall'albero genealogico bizzarro. Piacevole, anche se ci sono molte ripetizioni non troppo funzionali alla narrazione.

[Cien mariposas literarias · Rating 4 out of 5]

testimonio de la época y una conciencia colectiva que ella y mas autores latinoamericanos dejaron, donde se tratan temas como el rechazo a la herencia cultural conquistada y el desarraigo y soledad que esto provoca en el individuo, excelente lectura

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lyrical with touches of magical realism. There are several lovely moments in this book.