Antonio Di Benedetto and the Latin American condition
Zama, a novel of solitude and self-destruction
IT IS 1790 in Asunción. Today the capital of Paraguay, it was once an early colonial hub but by the end of the 18th century had become a backwater, the end of the line in a Spanish empire fast approaching the end of its time. Diego de Zama, the legal adviser to the governor, is a man with a brilliant past but, he confesses, now “subjugated by circumstances and without opportunities”. While he waits and waits for a half-promised posting, he is tortured by his desire for illicit love despite his inner promise of fidelity to his wife and children, distant by “half the length of two countries and the width of the second”.
This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline “The long wait”
From the May 9th 2020 edition
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