Coco ri joaquin gutierrez biography

1947 children's novel by Joaquín Gutiérrez

Cocorí is Costa Rican author Joaquín Gutiérrez's most popular children's book, perhaps only topped by La Hoja de Aire.

Published in 1947, the short novel ranks among the most outstanding children's stories in Costa Rica, though it is no longer mandatory but suggested reading in primary schools.

Joaquin gutierrez biography

It has been translated into ten languages, and adapted for the theater several times in Germany, Czech Republic, Mexico and seven other countries.

Plot

The story concerns a small black child from the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, who meets a blonde tourist girl who gives him a rose.

In return, she asks for a squirrel monkey. Smitten, he fulfills his promise by setting a trap made out of rice and a coconut, but when he returns to where he had seen her, the boat she had come in was gone. When he returns, to his home, he finds that the rose she had given him had wilted.

He asks his mother, Drusila, why it had lived such a