Our Daily Bread

AWARDED an Honorable Mention in the recent LatinAmerican Prize Novel Contest, this novel is a bizarre and yet familiar story; for though it is set in the jungle regions of coastal Ecuador, still it is the story of settlers the world over. A small band of oddly assorted men and their families cut their way into the jungle; and there, by cultivating the rice fields, they labor for their daily bread. They struggle against the beasts of prey, the climate and diseases, and finally against a greedy, oppressive, machine-minded overlord. It is the tale of a guerrilla band captain and his darkly beautiful Magdalena, of passionate love and violent hate, oi seduction and murder. The whole is woven together with a real beauty of language as the author envelops this story of action in the weird, luxuriant, and terrifying jungle.