Used
Paperback
1996
$3.59
When a witch doctor appears on the Marquis de Casalduero's doorstep prophesizing a plague of rabies in their Colombian seaport, he dismisses her claims - until he hears that his young daughter, Sierva Maria, was one of four people bitten by a rabid dog, and the only one to survive. Sierva Maria appears completely unscathed - but as rumours of the plague spread, the Marquis and his wife wonder at her continuing good health. In a town consumed by superstition, it's not long before they, and everyone else, put her survival down to a demonic possession and begin to see her supernatural powers as the cause of the town's woes. Only the young priest charged with exorcising the evil spirit recognizes the girl's sanity, but can he convince the town that it's not her that needs healing?
Used
Hardcover
1995
$4.09
Marquez describes how in 1949, as a young reporter, he witnessed the opening of several tombs as an old convent made way for a new hotel. One of the tombs contained a skeleton of a young girl with reddish hair that measured 22 metres, 11 centimetres long. The novel is his recreation of her legend as a popular saint. Sierva Maria De Todos Los Angeles, only child of the Marquis of Casalduero is bitten by a rabid dog at the beginning of this story. When she does not die, but evinces problems of a psychological nature, her father turns her over to a convent to be examined by church officials. But the priest who examines her, Cayetano Delaura falls in love with her. Their chaste affair, sexual without consummation, leads to their mutual destruction. Their plans to run away together are thwarted; the priest is banished and Sierva Maria dies after an awful exorcist ritual. When her body is found the narrator notes that 'the roots of her hair sprouted like bubbles on her shaved cranium; it was possible to see them grow.' Even in death, love triumphs over reason and logic.
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