The School on the Water

Lilian Guevara

The stories in La escuela sobre las aguas (The School on the Water) draw their strength from their very mundaness. Set in the poorer neighborhoods of Panama City or the indigenous regions of this Central American country, it is precisely the narration and description of everyday happenings that turn the twenty-five stories in this 118-page book into a journey that subtly engages in social and political criticism through the use of emotion. This ranges from nostalgia, as in “La casa maternal” (Mom’s House), to humor, as in “Matemática aplicada” (Applied Mathematics), to sadness, as in “Lápices de colores” (Colored Pencils), and finally to love, as in “La estrella de la mañana” (Morning Star).

Panamanian author Lilian Guevara studied philosophy at the University of Panama. She is a social researcher and has studied political dialogue, social movements, gender, alternative communication, sustainable development, and cultural development; she is also the author of Mundos probables (Probable Worlds), published in 2016.