[3] When Zeno Gandía returned to Puerto Rico, he set up his medical practice in the city of Ponce.

[8] The novel's plot deals with the harsh life in the remote and mountainous coffee regions in Puerto Rico.

This naturalist novel speaks of the injustices the poor farm worker suffered at the hands of rich landowners.

La Charca is a Puerto Rican classic[9] and is one of four novels in Las Crónicas de un Mundo enfermo (Chronicles of a Sick World).

In the 1960s, Zeno Gandía's best-known novel, La Charca was translated to English by Kal Wagenheim.

As a member of the Puerto Rico Union Party, he also advocated allowing voters to choose among non-colonial options, including annexation, an independent protectorate and autonomy.

That same year, Zeno Gandía together with Matienzo Cintrón and Luis Lloréns Torres wrote a manifesto which stated that it was time for Puerto Rico to have its independence.

[15] Their Independence Party, which also included Eugenio Benítez Castaño and Pedro Franceschi as founding members, was the first party in Puerto Rico's history to plead for Puerto Rico's independence and it established a precedent for future organizations with similar ideologies.