La magua

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Literature · Subcategory: Literary fragments · Year: 1995 · Authors: José Rivero Vivas

José Rivero Vivas (San Andrés, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 1934) is one of the most prominent Canarian authors, with more than a hundred published works. Although he is known as a novelist, he has also cultivated other literary genres such as theatre, poetry, essays, short stories, and tales. His work has been internationally recognised. In his novel La magua , published in 1995, the protagonist Marcial is a Canarian who struggles between his desire to leave in search of broader horizons and the anguish caused by leaving his beloved island. Thus, one day, he set sail for the Caribbean on an Italian transatlantic ship, where he stowed away; although, at the sight of Santa Cruz from the sea, he was so overcome with remorse that he had to jump ashore and immediately return to San Andrés to embrace his mother. While away, he also suffers from the yearning to return, although the prospect of coming back tortures him. The book is full of scenes of Santa Cruz, and especially of the coastal village of San Andrés.

«The village was a network of streets with single-storey houses made of stone and mud; today they are true mansions, with concrete columns and floor upon floor as far as the municipal authority allows. The same mountain, where there were only four houses in Los Barreros and some makeshift shelters for animals, is built up almost to the summit. The same happens further inland in those valleys. The number of inhabitants multiplies and people search for places to shelter. There is Suculún, barely twenty years old, or more, and how much it has grown. And La Pista, not to mention. It is life, which does not stop [...]

[...] A walk by the sea called La Playa, because before progress it was the village beach, where boats were stranded and fish from the chinchorro and trawling nets were landed. According to the oldest, the sand was brought in to build the new neighbourhoods of Santa Cruz, such as Duggi and Salamanca, where mules would sink into the street and struggle to move forward. Imagine how it must have been, that this side of the San Roque mountain, where the battery is, was known as the sandy area. Calculate how much sand has been taken from this village. Of course, some has been returned, although blonde, placed on that new beach they call Las Teresitas.»

28.506683, -16.190421