The Great Divide, Cristina Henriquez
Cristina Henriquez’s The Great Divide features divisions of more than one sort. The titular division is the splitting of Panama along the Cordillera mountains in order to build the United States’ ‘Great Canal’ of 1907. Connecting the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, the canal was designed to place the US in control of shipping routes and, therefore, global trade.
The novel explores other divisions too: the separation of Panama from Colombia, the severance of the relationship between a Panamanian fisherman, suspicious of the canal, and his son who works extracting land for its passage. There are divisions between classes, between races, between colonists and locals. For every division, however, there is a connection. The canal throws people together from all corners of the globe in a melting pot of labourers, servants, traders, and scientists. People fall in love. A rural town, threatened with being uprooted by the canal excavation, join together in community activism. A young lady from Barbados saves the life of a malaria victim she happens upon in the street. In this sweeping epic, Henriquez weaves together disparate narratives all centred around the canal that, in the act of tearing apart the land and engulfing cultures, homes, and livelihoods, also cements the story together.
Comments
Post a Comment