Clorinda Matto de Turner"s second novel, Indole, was published in Lima in 1891, two years after her Aves sin nido shocked the Peruvian reading public with its forthright criticism of Church and state corruption. Like Aves, Indole dramatizes the liberal reformist anticlericalism of late nineteenth century political debates, and is also set in a small Andean town surrounded by outlying haciendas. But in Indole, the town is a stable and basically happy one, where indigenous people, mestizos and landowners of Spanish descent live harmoniously in a beautiful Andean valley. Matto"s journalistic ambition to document people"s appearance and behavior in detail, and her close attention to the dynamics of gender, race and class, produces a vivid analysis of small town life in 1858, complete with an army batallion sweeping through at the end on its way to retake Arequipa for Ramon Castilla, placing the fictive town of Rosalina in a historical national framework. Clorinda Matto de Turner...