Ezer Vierba's manuscript engages deeply and self-reflexively with issues of power and aesthetic form in twentieth-century Panama, using a novelistic form. A complex narrative that illuminates the nature of power (both institutional and disciplinary) and the tumultuous social and political history of Panama, Vierba's book brings to life three historical episodes that are critical to the shaping and corrosion of contemporary Panamanian institutions: the establishment of the penal colony on the island of Coiba in 1919; the judicial drama following the murder of Panamanian president Remón in 1955; and the work and eventual disappearance" of a radical priest in 1971"--