Nights in the Yungas

Susan Patrick is a librarian at the Ryerson Polytechnical Institute.

“Good travellers are heartless” reads the inscription by Elias
Canetti at the beginning of this collection of short stories, which
centre on North Americans travelling through Central and South America.
Henighan’s characters, however, do have hearts, and that is why they
are so affected by their experiences. These “liberal” North
Americans are forced to re-evaluate their lives and beliefs in view of
the poverty and revolution they are confronted with in the other
Americas. In the longer stories, whole lives are completely changed; the
shorter stories are like snapshots of encounters, some remaining
unresolved, but all remembered by travellers whose hearts have been
touched. Throughout this collection, Henighan’s writing captures the
heavy atmosphere of heat, dust, fear, violence, and human resilience in
the face of repression.