Fabián Dobles
Fabián Dobles is featured twice in Costa Rica: A Traveler’s Literary Companion, and both stories show how disagreements can divide family or close friends.
His first story, “The Targuá Tree,” begins at the hearth of a dying fire as an old man arrives to make amends with his brother, whom he has not seen in forty years. The story is centered around the targuá tree, which sits at the top of a hill where the brothers have inherited farmland from their father. The tree itself is the cause of an argument that estranges the two. Dobles delivers a punch at the end of the story to show the result of their disagreement, though the author nevertheless delivers the message that time heals all wounds.
His second story in the collection, “The Diary,” jumps back and forth between the diary entries of two friends, H.R. Sandiford and E.L. Forrester. The comical collection of what each says about the other keeps the reader entertained through the business ventures of the two men. But then, “in the midst of banana trees, dreams, dehydrators, and idle days – the plot thickens…” Ultimately, it isn’t their banana business that divides the two men, but something else.
Fabián Dobles writes fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, and his work “expresses a vision of rural Costa Rican life, dramatizing the life and themes of the common people.” He is the author of Los años, pequeños dias, Historias de Tata Mundo, and Ese que llaman pueblo. Both stories are translated by John Incledon, who has also translated Farabeuf by Salvador Elizondo and Day of the Winged Lion by Mario Luis Rodríguez.
Photo Credit: Wiki Commons
Source: Ras, Barbara, ed. Costa Rica: A Traveler’s Literary Companion. San Francisco: Whereabouts, 1994.
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