Rulli di tamburo per rancas

Published in 1970, Drums for Rancas is the explosive first installment of Scorza’s "Silent War" cycle. It is a masterpiece of Magical Realism that tells the harrowing, yet darkly comedic, true story of a community’s struggle against two invaders: a corrupt local judge and the terrifying arrival of the "Cerro de Pasco Corporation."

A mysterious, seemingly infinite barbed-wire fence begins to crawl across the Andes overnight, swallowing the ancestral lands of the Rancas villagers. Led by the legendary figures of Héctor Chacón (known as "The Nighthawk") and the brave Rivera, the community attempts to fight back against a corporate and political machine that treats them as invisible. In this book, Scorza weaves together the surreal and the documentary, making the "invisible" suffering of the peasants impossible for the world to ignore.

Author: Manuel Scorza

He was a Peruvian novelist, poet, and political activist who dedicated his life to giving a voice to the indigenous Andean peasantry. Forced into exile several times due to his political stance against government corruption, Scorza lived a life as dramatic as his prose. He is best known for his "Silent War" cycle (La Guerra Silenciosa), a series of five novels that blend historical fact with mythical elements to document the struggles of the Peruvian central highlands. Tragically, Scorza died at the height of his career in a plane crash in Madrid in 1983, leaving behind a legacy as one of the most passionate advocates for justice in Latin American letters.