Magic Dogs of the Volcanos/Los Perros Magicos de los Volcanes is the first book written for children by one of Central America's premier novelists, Manlio Argueta. Author of the widely read One Day of Life (1983), and Cuzcatlan (1987), Argueta has rewritten in this newer book (illustrated by Elly Simmons; Children's Book Press, 1990; $12.95, cloth) the recent lurid history of his native El Salvador in a beautifully mythic and heartening form.
Brilliant illustrations by North American artist Elly Simmons complement a narrative filled with all of the flowering movements and rich colors of the Central American isthmus. Magic Dogs of the Volcanos contains English translations by Stacy Ross that parallel Argueta's text; the story is strikingly beautiful in both languages. The book's prose makes an excellent resource for a child (or adult) who is learning either Spanish or English.
Manlio begins with the benevolent cadejos, wolf-like creatures of Salvadoran folklore that accompany the campesinos on the slopes of the country's volcanos and protect them from misfortune. The seraphic cadejos, however, soon find themselves on the wrong side of the local landowners, who blame the magic dogs for causing the peasants to "want to eat when they are hungry, and drink water when they are thirsty and rest in the shade when the sun is hot."
Lead soldiers, called by the rich landowners to hunt the cadejos, soon meet with difficulty when the magic dogs hide themselves in the light and air. The volcanos, conspiring together to save the cadejos and the villagers, turn on their inner heat and blow down on the troopers until their soft lead bellies begin to melt. The sizzling soldiers then realized "that being made of lead was a weakness and decided to devote themselves to professions more worthy than soldiering." The people of the volcanos thus can celebrate with a huge party as evil Don Tonio and his henchmen run off to distant lands.
Manlio Argueta, who sees himself as an organizer as well as a writer, is working in coalition with other Central American artists to create children's literature that is truly historic and rooted in Salvadoran reality, not simply a translation of the stories of other lands into Spanish. The authors plan on distributing this collection of books for children to all of El Salvador's 5,000 schools.
The battle over the written word has been no small part of the civil war in El Salvador, where more than a decade of fighting on political and economic fronts has also worked to bring about a cultural opening in the country. Until the conversion of the Salvadoran church in the mid-'70s, poets and writers such as Roque Dalton and Manlio Argueta acted as the voice of the conscience.
Witnesses to the oppression, whether religious or artist, were persecuted and often killed because of their devotion to what they felt was their duty. Out of this struggle, a common bond between the church and the artist was born, a bond that today works toward the establishment of a new creation in El Salvador.
"And it's all because of the cadejos," they say.
Aaron Gallegos, a native Californian, was outreach assistant at Sojourners and working on local and national organizing projects, when this review appeared.
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