Fiction. RIVER OF SORROWS is set in the sixteenth century Argentina of the earliest Spanish settlements, when Juan de Garay came down the Parana River from Asuncion, Paraguay, to found the settlement of Santa Fe in 1573. After he left Santa Fe in early 1580, to reestablish the port of Buenos Aires, seven of the mestizos who had been among Santa Fe's first settlers rose up in rebellion against the Spanish town authorities. This is the historical setting where RIVER OF SORROWS begins, as an old soldier who came down the river with Garay remembers the hardships and violent injustices of the town's first years. The story is told in the voices of those who are voiceless in recorded history which, like the novel, is full of contradictory versions of what may have happened. Winner of the Buenos Aires Municipal First Prize in 1980 and the Boris Vian Prize in 1997.