Author(s): Rod Usher

Fiction

Part fable, part love story, part comi-tragedy, Poor Man's Wealth is narrated, somewhat unreliably, by El Gordo - the Fat One. He is the mayor of Higot, a dusty village in an unnamed Spanish-speaking country under military rule. He and the secret Marisol Committee - a group of local councillors - dream up a plan to save the village from economic death and the exodus of its young people, especially now that tobacco - their one source of income - is a suspect crop. They start a hoax. El Gordo, whose charming English comes via a library bequeathed to him, argues that the hoax which so changes the life of Higot is no more a deception than, say, the Loch Ness Monster, Ireland's Blarney Stone, the Colossus of Rhodes...Can they pull it off and attract tourists to unattractive Higot? Will the hunchback Bartolomeo, a sex scandal involving a bicycle, or the military junta blow the hoax apart, see its perpetrators 'disappeared'? El Gordo takes the reader on a joyous, witty and wise journey through the travails of his village...and his heart.