House of Mist And, the Shrouded Woman

"Bombal--with her bold disregard for simple realism in favor of a heightened reality in which the external world reflects the internal truth of the characters' feeling, and with her deliberate mingling of fantasy, memory and event--is the precursor of the magical realism that is the flower of South American writing today. . . . Both novels awake a feeling of genuine discovery, of minds and hearts not borrowed from European literature but indigenous to a New World of thought and feeling."--Chicago Tribune "Maria Luisa Bombal is the mother of us all."--Carlos Fuentes "One of the most outstanding representatives of the avant-garde in Latin America. Her themes of erotic frustration, social marginality, and cosmic transcendence must be considered as a profound expression of women's predicament presented through a feminine perspective."--Women Writers of Spanish America The shrouded woman, a corpse reviewing her life as she views the mourners at her wake, perceives in the personal ties that made up her life a failure of all parties to benefit from the possibilities of true intimacy. Helga, the heroine of House of Mist, has a powerfully imaginative inner life entirely unappreciated by her husband until he finally learns to value her as something more than a trophy. In these two evocative novels, a daring blend of magical elements, innovative style, and unsparing social criticism opens a window on the privileged yet artificially useless livesLindstrom, Naomi is the author of 'House of Mist And, the Shrouded Woman' with ISBN 9780292708303 and ISBN 0292708300.