A Bard on the Pampas

Argentina in the 1870s. Its rural economy is booming, buoyed by wool production. Immigrant Irish farmers are to the forefront, but Argentina's indigenous people are under threat. Famine, fever, and the notorious 'campaigns of the desert' threaten their very existence. In 1879 the campaigns are extended into Patagonia. Can young Richard Barron, Irish shepherd, poet, and musician, and his young Charrua Indian friend Xiemen do anything to impede them?Together with Tales of the Pampas (1900) by William Bulfin, and You'll Never Go Back (1946), a novel by Kathleen Nevin, completed by her sister Winnie, A Bard on the Pampas by John Clancy forms part of a great English language fictional trilogy on the Irish diaspora in Argentina. Like its predecessors, this new narrative serves as an effective celebration of cultural encounter.Juan José Delaney, Universidad del Salvador, Buenos Aires, Argentina.