Elena Poniatowska has been publishing since the 1950s, but English translations of her works are few and far between. My only previous experience with her was the wonderful Tinisima (reviewed in Belletrista issue 5), which was one of the best books I read in 2010. I jumped at the chance to review the first English translation of The Skin of the Sky, first published in Spanish in 2001. While this novel doesn't hit the dizzying heights of Tinisima, it confirms Poniatowska as a writer who deserves a wider audience.

The Skin of the Sky follows the life of Lorenzo de Tena, one of Mexico's most celebrated astronomers. His childhood bond with his doting mother is shattered by her early death, leaving him to be raised by an apathetic father. His mother's parting gift is a love of science. In particular, he alleviates the harsh realities of his life by losing himself in the remote beauty of the heavens. As he grows, de Tena becomes a talented astronomer. His love of home leads him to become a crusader for Mexican science, as he tries to build a lasting academia in his home country, rather than follow the brain-drain abroad. However, his love of the abstract is matched by his difficulty with his everyday life and his fraught relationships with fellow scientists, his family and, most of all, Fausta, the woman he perhaps loves. de Tena the beautiful dreamer is always accompanied by another de Tena, one who embodies much of the ugliness of life.

Poniatowska's delicate retelling of de Tena's life is done with consummate skill. However, his near-autistic personality and dispassionate outlook make him very difficult to engage with. Whereas by the time I finished Tinisima I had fallen a little bit in love with its vivacious and passionate heroine, I would have struggled to stay in the same room as de Tena for too long, and this antipathy did get in the way of my enjoyment of the book. Nevertheless, as in Tinisima, in The Skin of the Sky Poniatowska succeeds in creating a fascinating personality to fill in the bare facts of de Tena's life. He became real to me, and his crusade for Mexican science and Mexican pride gelled perfectly with her vision of a man lost on planet earth and at home in the stars.