For Bolivia, I read American Visa by Juan de Recacoechea, which was beautifully translated by Adrian Althoff.
Seriously, can we take a moment to appreciate all the bad ass translators of the world? The further I get into this project, the more I realize how important their work is. I am fascinated by the artistry and technique that goes into this process.
Back to the book. There are two ways I can describe American Visa:
- If The Hangover and Kafka met in Bolivia, and had a book baby, and then abandoned it, that orphan would grow up to be American Visa.
- The Eagle’s song Hotel California, except it’s a book set in Bolivia.
The second is probably the better description as the protagonist stays at a hotel in La Paz, Bolivia called Hotel California, and with all the madcap bizarre adventures, and the protagonist’s struggles to get an American Visa to escape Bolivia, I have to believe the author deliberately named the book’s hotel after the aforementioned song.
American Visa was an excellent choice for my Read Around the World quest. Aside from being a very entertaining and brilliantly written book, the story ruminated upon what it means to be a Bolivian in the 1990s. There were miners on strike, references to the altitude, descriptions of the city and countryside, and one man’s desperate quest to obtain an American visa.
I’ve read a lot of Latin American books that were seeped in magical realism. American Visa, however, is gritty and defiantly grounded in reality. When I reach the C’s, I’ll be rereading Isabel Allende (Chile) and Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Columbia) and I’m excited to compare those authors to de Recacoechea.
I had two concerns with this book.
One, I do not know if its descriptions of ethnicity are “candid” or “racist.” According to Wikipedia, 68% of Bolivia’s population is Mestizo (mixed White and Indigenous), 20% Indigenous, 5% White, 2% Cholo, 1% Black, and 4% other/unspecified. There are A LOT of characters in American Visa, and the author describes many as “half-breeds.” At the time this book was published in 1994, was that considered racist? Or was that just the term being used? It certainly felt racist to me, but I’m far from an expert on this.
Two, the author’s descriptions of female characters were highly sexualized. Females were either sensual or revolting–was this misogny? Or was this just part of the first person narrative? Ultimately, I processed these descriptions of women as the product of male fantasy. For example, the protagonist meets a prostitute named Blanca, and when they have sex, the main character thinks Blanca is enjoying sex for the first time. This felt like a glimpse into the straight man’s mind. Women fantasize about being so desirable and so loved, they break down the walls of the Mr. Darcy’s of the literary world. Do men fantasize about being so desirable, they can give a hooker her first proper orgasm?
For me, American Visa was so witty and so engaging that I was able to look past these two issues, but those are caveats I’d give to anyone considering this book. Overall, American Visa is a madcap adventure that is both tragedy and comedy, and I was sad when I finished the last page.