Las cabañas de las casas del pueblo

[Stu]

This seems to say cabins of the houses but that makes little sense. Does it suggest the houses are small cabins?

[Rusty]

'Cabins' isn't the only translation of cabañas.
We'll need more context.

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

Without any context, I assume the houses have annexed cabins... like a small appartment in a big garden maybe... :thinking: This should be the property of rich people though. It's not common that houses have an isolated appartment in the same land.

[Stu]

Thank you for the responses.
I didn't get the impression of a wealthy neighborhood. It is set in Czechoslovakia in the communist period and the author is just commenting on the view from the cinema so not a lot of context.
Perhaps the villagers have a type of garden shed but not clear why he would coment on the shed and not the house.

[Tomisimo]

Do you have the full sentence?

Also, if this is a translation, sometimes things are mistranslated, and the author could have been describing the rooftops, for example.

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

Ok, I found a translation into English, and the sentence is: "She stood with her back to me, looking out past the courtyard to where a group of cottages and gardens, each enclosed by its own picket fence, crept up a hill until the outline of a quarry cut them off".
So your intuition was right, it's just small houses in big gardens. For me, how the sentence is made in Spanish is rather unexpected, but since I'm incapable of translating, and since Kundera is a difficult author, I won't criticize the translator. ;)

[Tomisimo]

I don't claim to be any good at translating, but it can still be fun to try. Please correct anything I didn't get right and improve anything that can be better.

She stood with her back to me, looking out past the courtyard to where a group of cottages and gardens, each enclosed by its own picket fence, crept up a hill until the outline of a quarry cut them off.
Conmigo a sus espaldas, estaba parada, mirando más alla del patio hacia donde un grupo de casitas y jardines, cada uno encerrado por su cerca de piquete, iban subiendo un cerro hasta que el contorno de una cantera los detuvo.