The Dream of the Jaguar

Bonnefoy (Heritage) unspools a multigenerational saga of a South American family and a writer returning to his roots. It opens in 1920s Maracaibo, Venezuela, when Antonio Borjas Romero is abandoned on the steps of a church as an infant. He’s raised by a beggar woman named Mute Teresa and goes on to excel in school, where he falls in love with Ana María, also a star student. They both overcome their humble beginnings and become greatly admired doctors. Their daughter is born in 1958 on the same day that the dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez is ousted. In celebration of their beloved country’s liberation, they name her Venezuela. After Venezuela grows up and fulfills her dream of living in Paris, she meets and marries a Chilean exile. They have a son, Cristóbal, who grows interested in his South American roots and moves to Maracaibo, where he becomes a writer. Filled with earthy and luminous prose that evokes the writers of the Latin American Boom (“The stars were enormous in the sky and the world seemed flooded with silt”), the novel makes palpable Cristóbal’s fascination with his literary and familial heritage. Readers will be enchanted. (Dec.)