THE HONORABLE PRISON

New York, NY: Lodestar Books/E.P. Dutton, 1988. First Edition, First Printing . Hardcover. COLLECTIBLE - NEAR FINE/Near Fine. Judy Pedersen (Dustjacket Illustration). Text/NEW & Bright. First Edition, 1st Printing. Bi-color boards/Fine. DJ/NF w/a whisper of edge & surface shelfwear. Gripping tale of a South American political upheaval. loosely based on Columbian-born Lyll Becerra De Jenkins' life experiences; chapters 1 & 2 first published in the New Yorker. Set in 1955. First person narrative by Marta whose journalist father Miguel Maldonado's's critique of their country's dictator lands 12-year old Marta, her younger brother & parents in jail --- albeit an "honorable prison", that is house arrest in the Andes under military surveilence. Optimism fades as winter sets in, funds for food diminish, and secret attempts to aid the family end in death for the messengers as her father's health fails. Isolated, w/perseverance & courage, support from a forbidden friendship w/a handsome village school teacher, Marta matures from a teenager to a politically astute & sensitive young woman. 199 pgs in 24 chapters. Ultimately integrity of the family reigns, the dictator is overthrown, and rescuers arrive. De Jenkins' fine first novel captures tensions & desperations of a family of uncertain fate that finds sustenance through hope, honor & pride. A portait of political & cultural insights to 1950s South Amercian countries surface unobtrusively via Marta's eyewitness accounts of her fellow country men, and speak for our world's ongoing struggle for human rights.