The Places Where Names Vanish

John Walker is a professor of Spanish at Queen’s University.

Stephen Henighan, a native of the Ottawa Valley, has a taste and a
talent for things Latin American. Currently a professor of Spanish at
the University of London in England, Henighan has written another novel,
Other Americas (1990), and a collection of stories, Nights in the Yungas
(1992).

As in his earlier works, Henighan displays a good ear and a sharp eye
for the Latin experience. The Places Where Names Vanish, which tells the
story of a young Indian girl named Marta, is divided into two parts. The
first describes her life in an Ecuadorean village, while the second
depicts her life in Montreal.

In Ecuador, Marta lives a life of poverty that she can escape only
through her imagination and her dreams. However, after meeting Gonzalo,
a soldier who wants to be a musician, she achieves a physical escape
from the hard village life. In Montreal, Marta, Gonzalo, and their
daughter Marнa are confronted not only with poverty but with the
language barrier as well. Deserted by her husband, Marta finds herself
once again disadvantaged and marginalized. With the help of fellow Latin
American immigrants, she survives (barely) but continues to seek solace
in the world of dreams and imagination.