Una flor entre las grietas * A Flower Between the Cracks

Los 13 cuentos de esta antología, a la que Enrique Jaramillo Levi ha denominado Una flor entre las grietas, tienen a niños o jóvenes como protagonistas. Rescatados de entre su amplia producción cuentística, buscan poner de relieve esa parcela especial de su narrativa. “Aunque tuve una niñez placentera y una juventud feliz –dice el autor–, no he podido evitar que haya una tristeza subyacente en muchos de mis cuentos. El hecho de que inevitablemente la vida termine tarde o temprano en enfermedad y muerte marca negativamente mi visión de mundo, incluido el de mis personajes jóvenes, particularmente sensibles e imaginativos. Pero en estos cuentos trato de reivindicar la dignidad humana, la valentía, la solidaridad y la nobleza como virtudes redentoras.” Aprobado por el Ministerio de Educación de Panamá como texto complementario en el salon de clases, con temas para reflexionar.

The protagonists in A Flower Between the Cracks, an anthology of 13 stories written by Enrique Jaramillo Levi, are all children or adolescents. Chosen from his extensive production of short stories, they seek to highlight this special part of his narrative. “Even though I had a pleasant childhood and a happy adolescence,” claims the author, “I can’t avoid the underlying sadness in the majority of these stories, as no doubt there is in much of my fiction. I suppose that is so because life inevitably ends sooner or later in sickness and death, and my vision of the world has been marked negatively by that fact, as have my young characters who are particularly sensitive and imaginative. However, through them I try to vindicate human dignity, courage, solidarity and nobility as redemptive virtues.” Approved by Panama's Ministry of Education as a complementary text in the classroom, with ideas to think about.