Ya no soy sino una bolsa rota de palabras chilenas derritiendose en Haiti, de recuerdos que no se en que lugar del mundo poner , dice en un momento Carmen Prado, la protagonista de esta sorprendente y entranable novela. Rafael Gumucio modula en Milagro en Haiti la voz de una mu jer que, tras una incierta cirugia estetica, convalece en una clinica caribena al cuidado de una cocinera negra de paciencia infinita e ironia refinada. Aunque no exenta de amor, la mirada del mundo que tiene Carmen Prado es desfachatadamente incorrecta, mordaz y contradictoria, siempre exagerada , segun dice el narrador que hace de contrapunto a su embriagador monologo.
Con el carnaval primero y luego la violencia politica y social haitiana como telon de fondo, la novela transcurre principalmente en la habitacion donde Carmen Prado se recupera mientras evoca sin miramientos su pasado, piensa su presente y especula causticamente con su futuro, siempre acompanada de su abnegada cuidadora, con quien termina configurando una entranable version femenina y sedentaria de Quijote y Sancho.
ENGLISH DESCRIPTION
I’m nothing but a broken bag of Chilean words melting away in Haiti, of memories that I don’t know where in the world to put, says Carmen Prado, the protagonist of this surprising and touching novel.
In Miracle in Haiti, Rafael Gumucio adopts the voice of a woman who is recovering from a dubious aesthetic surgery in a Caribbean clinic, under the care of a black cook with infinite patience and refined irony. Although not exempt from love, the view of the world that Carmen Prado has is blatantly incorrect, scathing, and contradictory, and always exaggerated, according to the narrator, as a counterpoint to her heady monologue.
With first Carnaval and then political and social violence in Haiti as a backdrop, the novel takes place primarily in the room where Carmen Prado is recovering, while indelicately recalling her past, thinking of her present, and caustically speculating on her future, always accompanied by her selfless caretaker, with whom she ends up forming an endearing–and somewhat sedentary–female version of Quixote and Sancho Panza.
