Tierra Adentro was awarded the Ricardo Miro Prize in 1949, Panama's most prestigious literary award. For the first time in 65 years, it is being brought back to readers in this new edition which also contains a biographical essay and a short story by the author. The jury considered it to be the first panamanian novel to offer true character development. As such, the novel is the story of Andres Picota, a hard working family man, ambitious, but too avaricious. His greed is not for monetary wealth, but land extension which leads him to have conflicts with other landowners who feel threatened. As tension rises in the community and within the family, Picota faces difficult decisions. Quijano revisits interesting traditions of the way of life in the mountanous regions of Panama and he explores the corrupted politics of the early 20th century."