’Its tenor is exactly in keeping with other great Latin American writers, making a kind of fabulous modern treasury with the works of Vallejo,Neruda, Paz, Borges and Carpentier’

--The Times Higher Education Supplement

’An.exquisite writer,wise,compassionate and extremely funny’

--Sunday Telegraph

Drenched by rain, the town has been decaying ever since the banana company left. Its people are sullen and bitter, so when the doctor- a foreigner who ended up the most hated man in town - dies, there is no one to mourn him.But also living in the town is the Colonel,who is bound to honour a promise made many years ago. The Colonel’and his family must bury the doctor, despite the inclination of their fellow inhabitants, that his corpse be forgotten and left to rot.