The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman

by Louis de Bernieres

Overview

With the same ebullient storytelling, luxuriant prose, and irrepressible eroticism he brought to The War of Don Emmanuel s Nether Parts and Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord, Louis de Bernières continues his chronicle of Cochadebajo, the Andean village where macho philosophers, defrocked priests, and reformed (though hardly inactive) prostitutes cohabit in cheerful anarchy. But this unruly utopia is imperiled when the demon-harried Cardinal Guzman decides to inaugurate a new Inquisition, with Cochadebajo as its ultimate target.  
     On his side, the Cardinal has an army of fanatics who are all too willing to destroy bodies in order to save souls. The Cochadebajeros have precious little ammunition, unless you count chef Dolores's incendiary Chicken of a True Man, and a civil defense that deems nothing more crucial than the act of love. Part epic, part farce, The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman confirms de Bernières's reputation as England's answer to Gabriel García Márquez.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780375700156
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/01/1998
Series:	Vintage International
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	480
Sales rank:	1,070,839
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 7.94(h) x 1.02(d)

About the Author

Louis de Bernières is the bestselling author of Captain Corelli's Mandolin, which won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize Best Book in 1995. His most recent books are So Much Life Left Over, The Dust That Falls From Dreams and The Autumn of the Ace, the short story collection Labels, the children's book Station Jim and the poetry collection The Cat in the Treble Clef.

Editorial Reviews

Like its predecessor, The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts, this deftly constructed novel pokes gentle fun at the well-mined genre of magical realism while providing an exuberant portrait of a Latin America in which anything is possible. Set in an imaginary nation reminiscent of Colombia, where the British author once worked, these interconnected tales chronicle the running feud between the Catholic clergy, headed by Cardinal Guzman, and the heretical countryside -- in particular Cochadebajo, a free-spirited city serviced by an unfrocked priest and inhabited by a delightfully feisty collection of eccentrics, including a Mexican musicologist seduced by a mischievous set of twins, a former prostitute (in whose popular restaurant men down fiery chicken to prove their machismo) and Dionisio Vivo, the composer and crusading journalist who also figured in Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord. Accompanied by mercenaries, the clergy set out on a crusade that quickly gets out of control and only hardens the resolve of Cochadebajo's citizens to protect themselves. As the novel works to a dramatic climax, readers will join the author in rooting for the life-affirming joyousness of Cochadebajo, which is skillfully contrasted with the Cardinal's evil nature.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

De Bernieres, winner of two Commonwealth Prizes, is an Englishman with a French name who writes magical realist novels set in South America. In his third work, he returns to his unnamed country (similar to Colombia), where Catholic hierarchy butts up against cocaine cartels and indigenous pantheism. A wonderful creation, the eponymous Cardinal Guzman is an aging prelate with a young mistress and a monster growing in his belly. As it slowly dies, the monster poisons him until, during an hallucination, the cardinal kills his own son, who soon returns as a hummingbird. The novel's essential plot is the struggle of the bucolic town of Cochadebajo to protect itself from a marauding latter-day Torquemada and his 'bodyguards,' who, unleashed by the words of the monster-pregnant Cardinal Guzman, have been terrorizing mountain villages in the name of God. In the climactic scene, a ragtag army of the town's men and women, an army brigade, and an affectionate band of several hundred black jaguars defeat the venomous inquisitor. The language is rich and the book is abundantly imagined. -- Harold Augenbraum, Mercantile Library, New York

Library Journal