Novel

Co-authored with Amelia Mondragon

Synopsis:

Rodrigo is lying on the dirty floor of a police prison cell with a terrible hangover.  As he awakes, he hears that the attempt to assassinate President Hugo Chávez has failed.  Fearful and repentant, he recalls the events that led him and his friends to plan the attack.

This passionate novel mixes the recent history of Venezuela with powerful fiction, in order to tell the tales of Rodrigo, Manuel, Alfredo, Carmen and Maikel.  In addition to representing different social classes, these characters are mobilized by the expectations, disappointments and terrible losses they experience.  The result is an intimate image of the emotions felt by Venezuelan society in response to the radical changes their country has seen. This novel in many ways predicted the collapse Venezuelans currently are experiencing.

About Amelia Mondragon (Spain, 1953). Literature professor at Howard University (Washington DC). She grew up in Venezuela, where she completed her undergraduate studies at The Universidad Central of Venezuela. She earned her doctorate in Latin American literature at the University of Maryland (1986). She has written several critical essays on Central American literature and contemporary Hispanic poetry. She has also edited the book Aesthetic Changes And New Cultural Projects In Central America (1993). Currently she lives in Hyattsville, Maryland. She enjoys swimming and yoga as well as nature.

Originally published as Alta Traición. Translated to English by Isabel Trevor.