by Hernán Rivera Letelier · ALFAGUARA · tapa blanda · ISBN 9788420423593
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«La contadora de películas» is the novel by Hernán Rivera Letelier, published by Alfaguara in paperback (128 pages, in Spanish).
María Margarita, a girl from a saltpeter town, has the gift of telling films as if seen in Technicolor and Cinemascope. When Marilyn Monroe or Gary Cooper films arrive, her family gathers the money for her to go see them and then recount them to her father and brothers. The novel traces the history of cinemas in the pampa.
The novel, originally published in 2009, belongs to Alfaguara's Hispánica collection. Hernán Rivera Letelier received Chile's National Literature Prize in 2022.
For readers of Latin American fiction and film lovers seeking stories about memory and life in the pampa.
Hernán Rivera Letelier is a Chilean novelist. Until the age of 11 he lived in the Algorta saltpeter mining town, in the north of Chile. When it was closed down, he and his family moved to Antofagasta, where his mother died. His siblings went to live with his aunts. He stayed in Antofagasta, alone, until he was about 11. To survive, he sold newspapers. Later he worked as a messenger for Anglo Lautaro Nirate Company, until his thirst for adventure led him to spend three years traveling in Chile, Bolivia, Perú, Ecuador and Argentina. He returned to Antofagasta in 1973 and began to work at another company, Mantos Blancos. He married a 17-year-old girl when he was 24. Later he left for Pedro de Valdivia, another saltpeter mining town. He completed his seventh and eighth years of study at night school, and at the Inacap educational institute he earned his license as a secondary education instructor. Today he lives in Antofagasta with his wife and four children. He has received the Premio Consejo Nacional de Libro twice, in 1994 and 1996. His novel El arte de la resurrección won the Premio Alfaguara de Novela in Spain in 2010.
