Malaria Dreams: A Book Review of The Great Divide by Cristina Henríquez
Advertisements for work to dig the world-famous Panama Canal began popping up at World Fairs and in newspapers all over North and Central America. What the French couldn’t finish, the U.S.A would! Project foremen were offered special bonuses and prizes for any man able to drive his team to dig, by hand, one cubit mile of trench in under fifteen days.
Yet, no one was talking about the mountain that lay in the center of the project. Certainly not Omar, a young Panamanian man determined to stamp his mark on history. And definitely not Ada, a teenage girl from Barbados, confident she can pay for her sister’s life-saving medicine with the money she will earn working among the canal men. And of course not, John, who fiercely believes the whole project is not doomed, and the waters of the Atlantic and the Pacific will meet.
My local library had a curated display in the front lobby for National Hispanic Heritage month, which runs September 15th through October 15th. One of the beautiful and brightly covered books had a summary that captured my attention. The Great Divide, a historical fiction novel, is about the forming of the Panama Canal. I know very little about this major historical event that literally connected our world, but I’ve always been curious. And while U.S. engineers, and a lot of government funding from the United States, completed the canal in 1914; there were many other nations represented by the workers that flooded to Panama to complete the project.
As a biologist, my limited knowledge of the Panama Canal focused on the spread of Yellow Fever and Malaria in this part of the world. Some estimates claim that over 25,000 people perished working and living around the Panama Canal. One of my favorite scenes in this book was a crude look at company sponsored health care. The engineering firms hired "Quinine Men” to walk up and down the line dosing workers with quinine to prevent malaria and it’s horrible symptoms.
As B.B. Garin wrote in The Masters Review concerning The Great Divide, “This is a portrait of contrasts. Where the land feels both fragile and unshakable. Where people are disposable and yet every life feels vital. Where impossibilities swirl through reality, like the smell of violets drifting on an open sea, leaving it to the reader to decide what is really there.”
The mixture of disease symptoms with disillusioned dreams forces readers to question their own commitments. And what more could we want from a scenic fiction novel? If you are a looking for an escape from your current reality, pick up The Great Divide today.
I also included this great clip from the author about her writing process for this book. Check out this video with Cristina Henríquez in an interview by Northwestern University.
Join me, and enrich your view of the Spanish-speaking portion of the globe, here is what I am reading this month:
