Review
The Secret History of Costaguana feels more like oral history than fiction, as the first-person narrator José Altamirano describes the events that led up to his disclosure of his country's history to Joseph Conrad. The premise of the novel is a clever one: when José Altamirano realizes that he has been duped by Joseph Conrad (who steals Altamirano's life story to create a novel) Altamirano fights back, offering his own version of historical events. His "version" is the novel
A Secret History of Costaguana. Here, fiction reflects real life; Joseph Conrad did write a Latin American novel called
Nostromo, which Vásquez declares is "the best novel written about Latin America outside of the Spanish language." Still, despite his literary talent, Conrad did not write the story well enough and - here enters the storytelling - José Altamirano will put...
Beyond the Book
Juan Gabriel Vásquez's novel,
The Secret History of Costagauna, centers on the making of the Panama Canal. Constructed between 1904 and 1914, the Panama Canal is a vital shipping route that connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Though it only took ten years to construct the current canal, the idea for a waterway connecting the two oceans dates back to the 16th century. The route around the horn of South America was long, arduous, and costly. If it were possible to create a water route over the thin isthmus between North and South America, a great deal of money and time could be saved....
