Premio Rómulo Gallegos 2009, El País de la Canela es la historia de una expedición fracasada, de la locura que se apoderó de aquellos conquistadores del Nuevo Mundo que deliraban a causa de las promesas de oro y opulencia.
«Gonzalo [Pizarro] era treinta y cinco años menor que su hermano Francisco: cuando llegó a las Indias, los primogénitos ya habían vivido hallazgos y tormentos, y él tuvo que inventar sus propias locuras. El destino no le deparó como al primero un marquesado sobre la sangre seca del Inca, ni le concedió el poder subalterno del segundo, capaz de conducir sobre el océano barcos que por poco se hundían de oro. Era apuesto, era joven, era el mejor jinete de los reinos nuevos, se le medía a todo riesgo y, como sus hermanos, nunca sintió otro amor que la pasión de mandar y la embriaguez de arriesgarlo siempre todo.
Buscaba un reino propio que estuviera a la altura de su ambición, y la noticia del País de la Canela le dibujó en el aire un destino más rico que la ciudad de pedernal de los muertos».
ENGLISH DESCRIPTION
The Land of Cinnamon, Rómulo Gallegos Prize 2009, is the story of a failed expedition, of the madness that took over the New World conquistadors, delirious over the promise of gold and riches.
“Gonzalo [Pizarro] was thirty-five years younger than his brother Francisco: when he arrived in the Indies, the firstborns had already experienced discoveries and torment, and he had to make his own madness. Destiny didn’t hold for him a marquessate on top of Incan dry blood, as was his older brother’s case, nor granted him a subordinate command as it was for the second son, capable of crossing the ocean on ships that almost sank with so much gold. He was handsome, he was young, he was the best rider in the new kingdoms, measured by risk. And like his brothers, he never felt love but for the passion of command and the rapture of risking it all every time.
He was looking for a kingdom of his own, one in line with his ambitions, and the news of the Land of Cinnamon drew for him a far richer fate than the stone city of the dead.”
