Ingrid Rojas Contreras: Fruit of the Drunken Tree, Doubleday (Penguin Random House) USA, 9780385542722, hardback, available,  (No German translation yet)

Ingrid Rojas Contreras has written an extraordinary, colorful and atmospheric debut novel, a coming of age story of three girls from very different backgrounds growing up in Bogota, Columbia. 

But it is so much more, it is a heart wrenching story of growing up facing daily dangers in Columbia’s guerilla war with Pablo Escobar virtually ruling the country in the 1990 ties. It is an immigrant story, a story of impossible choices and a story of betrayal, friendship and family love.  “Fruit of the Drunken Tree” reminds me so much of two masterful Latin female writers, Julia Alvarez and Sandra Cisneros, whose work I greatly admire and whose novels describe similar circumstances as that of the Santiago family.  Although the publisher compares the novel to Isabel Allende or Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s work, I disagree. Their work is more influenced by magical realism whereas “Fruit of the Drunken Tree” draws more from real life experiences by the author.

The voices of willful 7 year old Chula and her opinionated older sister Cassandra alternate with that of their 15 year old maid, Petrona. Their lives are brutally different. Cassandra and Chula are privileged, growing up in a wealthier part of Bogota with security protection, a beautiful, stay at home, gutsy mother and a mostly absent father whose job as a well-paid manager of an oil company provides for their daily comforts. Petronas world in contrast is hopeless and bleak.  Her income is the only one, feeding a family of 8, her older brothers having left and refusing to work for the wealthy choosing a life of crime, her asthmatic mother unable to work. Home is a hut on the “hills”, one of Bogota’s slums. Her father disappeared years ago, her little brother Ramon did not survive his 12^th birthday working for the guerillas. The growing danger of surviving car bombs, kidnappings and assassinations in Columbia casts shadows over both families and escalates when Petrona falls in love with Gorrion, a guerilla gang member.  As Petrona is sucked into Gorrions life and his gang member’s demands on her, she is faced with an impossible decision.  

I highly recommend this book, could not put it down. I saw it listed as “Best books of the years” several times; the author is definitely someone to watch out for in the future!