Content Warning: This section includes discussion of domestic abuse, including child abuse and sexual abuse. It also contains a brief mention of grooming.

Eva Luna narrates the story of her birth. She is born into an impoverished household in an unnamed country, to a mother named Consuelo and a father identified only as “an Indian with yellow eyes [. . .] from the place where the hundred rivers meet” (1). Consuelo herself was born in a jungle region but knows little about her ancestry. As a baby, she is found wandering alone and taken in by Catholic missionaries.

At age 12, Consuelo is sent to the Little Sisters of Charity convent in the unnamed country’s capital city, where she spends three dreary years. Under the leadership of a dictator nicknamed “El Benefactor,” the country modernizes and enjoys the wealth brought in by its rich stores of petroleum, but the convent remains a silent and sterile place. Though Consuelo is an eager student of theology, she cannot connect to the Catholic god.

Due to Consuelo’s ability to sit still for hours, some of the nuns think she is having spiritual visions, but the Mother Superior recognizes that she is daydreaming.