The Mapmaker`s Opera

Product Description

In the tradition of Allende, this is a magical novel, written in the form of an opera, & set in Seville & Mexico in the late 1800s. Act I opens in Seville. Emilio has been forced by his overbearing mother into the priesthood. Monica is a governess in a wealthy household who falls pregnant by the head of the house. A chance meeting in Seville cathedral suggests a solution to both their predicaments -- they decide to marry, though it is not a love match. Emilio raises Monica`s son Diego as his own, & they form a close bond over their mutual love of language, books, maps & birds. When Emilio dies, Monica reveals that he was not Diego`s father. She grows ever more embittered & eventually dies, leaving Diego to pursue his true calling
- his love of birds. Act 2 follows Diego`s life in Mexico
- his apprenticeship to an American who is mapping the birds of Mexico; his love for Sofia, the beautiful, independent daughter of a Mexican farmer; & his obsession with saving the Passenger Pigeon from extinction. The cities of Seville & Merida are so central to the narrative, & evoked so beautifully, that they are almost characters themselves. Taking in many of the stock characters that appear in the best operas -- the philanderer, the wronged wife, the harassed servant, the star-crossed lovers -- The Mapmaker`s Opera is an original & magical novel which will appeal to lovers of Gabriel Garcia Marquez & Isabel Allende.