Synopsis• THE
novel El equipaje amarillo, by Marta Rojas
incorporates, with an innovative and effective
design of form and content, the drama of Chinese
coolies brought to Cuba and the dialogue that this
set-to of realities propitiated between the
sensuality and sediment of Asian culture – of which
the refined eroticism of protagonist, the young
Señor, is a product – and the exuberant tropical
customs of the island.
The compelling agent or purchaser of human beings
is the central character who is going to weave, with
his calculating and "diabolical efficiency," an
intrigue that involves Cuban and Hispanic landowners
and their henchmen, the extravagant Havana nobility,
a countess whose ankles are adorned with golden
fetters, a group of collies blinded during the
fateful voyage to the island a troop of "barbaric"
Californians, a terrible and at the same time
sensual runaway slave and her daughter and, above
all, Fan Ni, the enigmatic Chinese servant of the
young Señor, who comes from the legendary Forbidden
City. And all of that with the objective of
continuing the lucrative enterprise of trafficking
Chinese, set against the profitable business of
opium smuggling and that of its substitute, laudanum.
Marta Rojas’ original perception of the colonial
structure in El equipaje Amarillo is the most
notable artistic magnet that keeps us glued to the
pages of this novel, in which dreams and reality are
indistinguishable.
That is sufficient to you give an idea of this
novel, whose cover is a original piece by Flora Fong,
one of Cuba’s most dedicated painters, the inheritor
of a unique style in which that of her Chinese and
Caribbean ancestors are combined.
El equipaje amarillo, from the Editorial
Letras Cubanas, was launched as part of the summer
festival "Readings facing the sea" in Havana.
Daniel García Sántos (Editor and professor
of literature)
