Tales from the village of widows

In November 15, 1992, the rebels storm Marikita, a remote mountainous Colombian village, and force its men to join their ranks, and they immediately kill anyone who resists or refuses to comply with their demands, and only widows and spinsters remain in the village, along with the village priest and a white-skinned boy disguised as a girl. The village plunges into chaos, its streets filled with dirt, and its women suffering from food shortages. Rosalba, widow of Batino, wife of the former police sergeant, envisions a new future for this widow village. After appointing herself as the judge of the village, she enacts new laws, imposes order, restores the collapsing economy — and proceeds to establish a utopian village that surpasses any ideal society a revolutionary could imagine. Cleotilde Guranizo, who arrives in the village seeking a place to spend the rest of her life, becomes the schoolteacher. Dona Emilia mourns the loss of clients at the brothel she manages. Meanwhile, Manolia Morales forms a group of girls nostalgic for men, creating what resembles a "magical brothel" where single women seduce men from neighboring villages before they reach Dona Emilia’s brothel. After a strong storm destroys the only dirt road leading to the village, the women have no way to communicate with the outside world, and Judge Rosalía proposes a "birthing campaign" where the village priest mates with 29 women (later revealed to be sterile). After each story told by the women, testimonies reveal the atrocities committed by the fighting men, and the narrative is filled with high doses of magical realism, famous in Latin American literature, and brimming with satirical and humanistic attitudes.