El Arte de la Resuccrección

Reading it I saw all the time an extremely funny movie in my head. I am am convinced that it will be adapted very soon. There are just too many absurd scenes in it. The Christ of the Elqui Valley is a guy from the Atacama desert in the north of Chile who had some kind of revelation during his reclusion as eremite. He thinks now that he is an incarnation of Christ and started a voyage along Chile. Mostly in the north – in the saltpeter mines, where the English run the business. These mines were actually the reason for the Pacific war in 1879-84. It was for a long time the biggest source of income for the Chilean government – like it is today copper – and basically in the same region.
Most of these absurd scenes derive from his self-perception as Christ and his not so holy actions, i.e. his selfish attempt to convince Magalena – a so-called Saint Prostitute – to be his disciple. The miners there are not so amused that he wants to “steal” their saint whore, who even gives them free service for the time of a strike just out of solidarity.
Another funny character us a guy who is very good at sweeping. He is so “good” at it that he cleans the vast desert after he is finished with the village. Besides all those funny stories, you learn about the harsh living conditions in those mines. The author Letelier is one of the important contemporary Chilean writers and won the Alfaguera literature ward for this novel.