La Mujer Habitada/ the Inhabited Woman (Seix Barral Biblioteca Breve) (Spanish Edition)

Please read Joel's review, it's very good and he already said all i wanted to say!

Esta es una obra fuera de lo comun. Para los que crean en la reecarnacion sera una fascinante historia. Para los que no, pueden igualmente disfrutar el conocer lo que es la transicion del pensar de una persona que lucha por un ideal de muchos.
Una historia con personajes que pueden ser cualquiera de nosotros, en una realidad muy cercana.

Reading The Inhabited Woman (La mujer habitada) is, for a gringo such as myself, a transcultural experience. It is written in a vividly sensual, lyrical style that brings to life the culture of its unnamed Central American setting--presumed to be Nicaragua, Belli's homeland.

Faguas (read "Managua") stirred her pores, her zest for life. Faguas was sensuality. Body open, wide, sinuous; a woman's disorderly breasts made of earth, scattered about the landscape. Threatening. Beautiful. (translation mine)

Even in moments of irony, her descriptions retain this poetic quality:

From the street she could see the escalator, the great novelty, the only one in the whole country. The store had had to station janitors in the doorway to keep out the ragged little newspaper boys who, in the first days, ruined the pleasure of the elegant ladies being electronically elevated to consumerism.

This is above all the story of a young woman finding her place in a male-dominated society, in the professional world, in relationships, and in a dangerous time of social rebellion. Thus it examines in thoughtful detail both the interpersonal and the intrapersonal.

Lately Lavinia didn't understand herself. She didn't understand why it put her in a bad mood that Felipe didn't talk to her about the Movement. She didn't want to be in the Movement, she repeated to herself. And yet, to speak about it and ask about it had become an irrational attraction. A constant temptation, an inexplicable incitement. And she never imagined Felipe holding her back, containing her, denying her the knowledge.

The Inhabited Woman is deeply spiritual as well as political. The protagonist is aided in her self-discovery by the reborn spirit of a Native woman whose people had resisted the Spanish conquest five centuries earlier. (It's only fair to warn you that this history takes a grotesque turn at times.) Through this and other connections, Belli empowers us to feel the interrelatedness of the protagonist, her compatriots, her homeland, and ourselves. La mujer habitada is a powerful read, not just because of where it takes us but because of how it gets us there.

This is a unique story that intertwines the struggle and bravery of past warriors with the ones of today. For anyone who loves to read a book about human passion and love. For anyone who can relate to the feeling of belonging to a culture and being able to die for ideals, a country and family, will definitely find in this book the the inner rebel that many of us have against unjustice and abuse.