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A review by attytheresa
Palm Trees in the Snow by Luz Gabás
5.0
I found this a really interesting and beautiful novel, one I highly recommend. It's the story of a white Spanish family from the Spanish Pyrenees who worked on the cocoa plantations during the Spanish colonization of the Equatorial Guinea island of Fernando Po (n/k/a Bioko) from the 1930s to about 1971 when the whites were forced to leave an independent Equatorial Guinea by the psychopathic dictator. Descendants of the family revisit Bioko in 2003/2004 looking to unravel some family secrets involving potential half-siblings and past events, and the title refers to the stories heard during the long winters in the Pyrenees about life under the palms on the cocoa plantation. At its heart, this is a love story - of a man for a woman and a man for a place.
The author does a superb job of weaving the actual history of Bioko into the fictional story; it even drives portions of it. As I reached the halfway point of the book, I realized how little I knew about Spanish colonies in Africa or even about Equatorial Guinea today. So I did some research and it did inform my reading going forward. But such research is really unnecessary because the author has interwoven her own research, including the rich oral histories of family and neighbors who were among the Spaniards who traveled to work on Fernando Po. The novel sings with this truth. I was just impatient.
But one wonder my research did provide that is not in the book ... actual photographs of the astonishing corridor of tall palms leading to the cocoa plantation on Fernando Po, Sampaka. Just google images of Sampaka Equatorial New Guinea.
I read this as my book written by someone from a country I have not visited - Spain - for the Pop Sugar 2017 Reading Challenge. It would also fit a book set in two different time periods.
The author does a superb job of weaving the actual history of Bioko into the fictional story; it even drives portions of it. As I reached the halfway point of the book, I realized how little I knew about Spanish colonies in Africa or even about Equatorial Guinea today. So I did some research and it did inform my reading going forward. But such research is really unnecessary because the author has interwoven her own research, including the rich oral histories of family and neighbors who were among the Spaniards who traveled to work on Fernando Po. The novel sings with this truth. I was just impatient.
But one wonder my research did provide that is not in the book ... actual photographs of the astonishing corridor of tall palms leading to the cocoa plantation on Fernando Po, Sampaka. Just google images of Sampaka Equatorial New Guinea.
I read this as my book written by someone from a country I have not visited - Spain - for the Pop Sugar 2017 Reading Challenge. It would also fit a book set in two different time periods.