A masterful novel exploring womanhood, class, and tradition in 1950s Colombia From her home in Paris, Lina recalls the story of three women whose lives unfold in the conservative city of Barranquilla in Colombia. Amid parties at the Country Club and strolls along the promenade in Puerto Colombia unfurls a story of sensuality suppressed by violence; a narrative of oppression in which Dora, Catalina, and Beatriz are victims of a patriarchy that is woven into the social fabric. In Lina’s obsessive account of the past, this masterful novel transforms personal anecdotes into a profound panorama of Colombian society towards the end of the 1950s. From private memories to historical reality, the structure of this book is full of precision, poetry, and exile’s insight. Standing above and apart from her contemporaries of the Latin American literary boom, Marvel Moreno narrates a reality that describes the private lives of the people of Barranquilla while offering a compelling perspective on the human condition. “One of the hundred most influential women in the history of Colombia.”—Cromos magazine