María is a 19th-century romantic novel by Colombian writer Jorge Isaacs, set in the Cauca Valley. It tells a tender love story framed by the narrator's memories of leaving home for school in Bogotá. Its lyrical portrayal of rural life and deep feeling makes it a classic of Latin American literature.
It is a part of the faithfulness of Isaac’s transcript of life in provincial Colombia that he uses many words which are Cauca localisms.
Several of these have been left untranslated, as having no equivalent, either as word or thing, in English —or, indeed, in Spanish. It is always sufficiently clear from the context, however, that they are names of animals, often onomatopoetic, or of plants; and nothing more could be conveyed by a roundabout translation. Special acknowledgments are due Señor Carlos Martinez Silva LL.D., delegate from the republic of Colombia to the Pan-American Congress, for valuable aid kindly rendered the translator.
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