Hijo del Salitre

by Volodia Teitelboim

Es una novela de aliento épico conmovedor. Es uno de los primeros relatos vívidos y rigurosos de la masacre en la Escuela Santa María de Iquique en 1907. Es un filme de largometraje donde la pampa salitrera resucita con toda la vida de quienes la habitaron, trabajaron y lucharon en ella; todo lo que hace de ésta una obra de valores literarios rotundos. El tiempo la ha enriquecido y pasó con éxito la prueba de su devaluación. Creemos -al contrario- que ahora podrá ser apreciada y valorada definitivamente. Sus héroes y sus escenarios pueden iluminar la llamada "postmodernidad" con la fuerza de su verdad, ahora cuando cesaron su trabajo las últimas salitreras que sobrevivían.

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1952

About the author

Volodia Valentín Teitelboim Volosky (March 17, 1916 - January 31, 2008) was a Chilean lawyer, politician and author.

Born in Chillán to Jewish immigrants (Moises Teitelboim and Sara Volosky), Teitelboim was interested in literature from an early age. He finished high school (as well as served in the Communist Youth starting at age sixteen), then began his studies in the Faculty of Law of the University of Chile, where at graduation he presented his superior thesis "The Dawn of Capitalism - The Conquest of America."

During the 1940s Teitelboim suffered, along with all the militants of the Chilean Communist Party, persecution and exile, under the ruling of the Democratic Defense Law (also known as Ley maldita). He was treated and detained in Pisagua. In 1965 he was elected senator of Santiago, remaining in this position until the coup of September 11, 1973. During the rule of Pinochet he lived in exile in Moscow, where he developed the program Listen Chile. He clandestinely infiltrated the Militant Regiment, presenting them to the authorities in 1988. The next year he was elected president of the Communist Party, a position he held until 1994.

Teitelboim was formerly married to Rachel Weitzmann, with whom he raised a son named Claudio Teitelboim. However, in 2005 it was discovered that Claudio's father was actually the lawyer Álvaro Bunster.

Teitelboim's literary work, for which he was awarded Chile's National Prize in Literature in 2002, as well as the Literature prize of the 1931 Flower Games, is chiefly in the form of memoirs, biographies, and literary essays. His first book Antología de poesía chilena (Anthology of Chilean Poetry) was published in conjunction with Eduardo Anguita in 1932, and compiled the great poets of Chile. He would later say that it committed the errors of omitting Gabriela Mistral and of accentuating the dispute between Vicente Huidobro, Pablo de Rokha, and Pablo Neruda. His series of memoirs, Un muchacho del siglo XX (A Boy of the Twentieth Century, 1997), La gran guerra de Chile y otra que nunca existió (The Great War of Chile and Another That Never Existed, 2000) and Noches de radio (Radio Nights, 2001) present from a political and social perspective the great arch of Chilean history during the 20th century. His best known capacity is that of a biographer, in which he wrote about Jorge Luis Borges, Vicente Huidobro, and with the most critical acclaim, Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral. In terms of membership in literary movements, he is generally located within the Chilean Generation of '38.

Reviews

[Ari Sanzana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hijo del salitre es una tremenda tragedia, histórica y sangrienta de la vida del norte de Chile en tiempos del salitre, de sus sufrimientos e injusticias, contradicciones e inseguridades personificados en Elías, su protagonista.
Es casi explícito su carácter revolucionario, proletario y marxista, para bien y para mal, especialmente al final del relato.

[Gonzalo Rozas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un buen libro que habla de la épica y tragedia de la lucha de los pampinos y su fatal desenlace. Un libro lleno de alusiones literarias, rica en su manera de ser escrita.

Aún así, fue un libro que me costó leer. A ratos se me hizo pesado, lento y en algunas partes innecesario. A pesar de aquello, un tremendo libro muy recomendado.

[Débora Morales · Rating 4 out of 5]

Estuvo duro, pero muy recomendado para quienes les interesa el tema :D