Infanta     by Bodo Kirchhoff, Translated by J Brownjohn Original title: Infanta Original language: German Published by Penguin USA Pub. Date: 1992 Format: Hardcover Dimensions: (in inches): 9.20 x 1.50 x 6.60 ISBN: 0670842613 List Price: $24.00, £15.26 Buy online from Amazon.co.uk for £15.26 Published by Harvill Pub. Date: 1992 Format: Hardcover List Price: £14.90 Not available for ordering Published by Flamingo Pub. Date: 1993 Format: Paperback List Price: £6.99 Not available for ordering

In an imaginary (‘Don’t get lost on the way home. Bear right and keep heading for the silence.’) but well-detailed — including plant-names and climatic nuances — tropical outpost called Infanta, located somewhere between Guatemala and the Philippines, a mysterious stranger, Kurt Lucas, arrives and ends up staying at a charming run-down Catholic mission. The missionhouse is inhabited by five elderly priests, greedy for jam, cake and the distraction a stranger brings. There is also, need we say, a beautiful woman — Mayla — very young but with a past.

Infanta seems to be the classic tropical scenario, the Englishman Somerset Maugham’s Singapore or the Uruguayan Juan Carlos Onetti’s Santamaria, with the difference that somewhere slightly offstage an enormous political struggle is going on, similar to the one that overthrew the Philippine dictator Marcos in the name of ‘Peoples’ Power’.

Directly on-stage however is the love-affair of the handsome but vacuous Lucas (he’s a male model!) and the tropical thunderstorm of a woman, Mayla. There’s also a simpatico defrocked priest who runs a shop that hires out paperback romances by the hour, a nightclub singer with the voice of the century and a police chief who is, naturally, in charge of all smuggling operations.

As in the Maugham tradition figures from nearer home — Lucas the model with his Milano jetset life-style or his erstwhile agent, the power-lunching Elisabeth Ruggieri — are examined against an exotic backdrop (and found wanting).

Along the way there is a rather good evocation of a certain kind of third world locale, all written with knowingness and good humour — which make it seem an extraordinarily unGerman book, if a slightly overlong one.

‘Flanking the main street were Infanta’s few solidly-constructed buildings; town hall and school, mayor’s office and church, police headquarters and post office. A little way off the road, cobbled together with planks, was the cockfighting arena. The rest of the town consisted of shacks, shanties and diminutive shops resembling abandoned puppet theatres. Many sold nothing but bananas suspended on lengths of thin string, no more than six or seven at a time. Others exuded an aroma of rubber goods and liquorice or rented out serialised books, which also dangled from strings.’ p25