Fiction in translation
Open Letter Loquela
Book Synopsis
£12.59
Open Letter Party Headquarters
Book Synopsis
£11.69
Open Letter The Pets
Book Synopsis
£10.79
Open Letter Bardo Or Not Bardo
Book Synopsis
£12.59
Open Letter Abahn Sabana David
Book Synopsis
£11.69
Open Letter One Of Us Is Sleeping
Book Synopsis
£14.39
Open Letter Gesell Dome
Book Synopsis
£16.19
Open Letter A Greater Music
Book Synopsis
£12.59
Open Letter Chronicle Of The Murdered House
Book SynopsisThis never-before-translated classic of Brazilian literature is a Faulknerian saga depicting the unraveling of a traditional patriarchal family.
£15.29
Open Letter Frontier
Book SynopsisA surreal coming-of-age novel that blends Eastern and Western beliefs, from the winner of the 2015 Best Translated Book Award.
£14.39
Open Letter The Invented Part
Book SynopsisA whirlwind tour of writers and muses, madness and genius, friendships, broken families, and alternate realities.
£16.19
Open Letter Salki
Book SynopsisA work of contemporary reportage in which the author traverses Europe while recounting stories from his family's past.
£13.49
Open Letter Tomas Jonsson, Bestseller
Book SynopsisIceland's first modernist novel is a wild excursion through the mind of a senile man trying to write his memoirs.
£15.29
Open Letter Island Of Point Nemo
Book SynopsisTwo stories - one a grandiose adventure-mystery, the other a tale of erotic exploits - humorously intertwine in a French e-reader factory.
£12.59
Open Letter The Same Night Awaits Us All
Book SynopsisAnarchism, dissent, poetry, and the avant-garde mix in this playful retelling of the assassination of Bulgaria's greatest poet.
£14.39
Open Letter The Bottom Of The Sky
Book SynopsisInspired by Slaughterhouse-Five, this is a love letter to the science fiction genre as a whole.
£14.39
Open Letter Narrator
Book SynopsisThe World Cup, La Grande Bouffe, and the post office drive this journey through Reykjavik and the narrator's mind.
£13.49
Open Letter Night School: A Reader for Grownups
Book SynopsisA tongue-in-cheek textbook for how to live in our modern age.
£14.39
Open Letter 77
Book SynopsisHaunting, paranoid story of a gay insomniac forced to make very uncomfortable choices to stay alive during the Argentine dictatorship.
£12.59
Open Letter The Translator's Bride
Book SynopsisA unique Kafkaesque novel translated by the author himself
£13.49
Open Letter Spiritual Choreographies
Book SynopsisAn entirely original novel about the struggle between private and official biographies, and the fleeting nature of collective happiness.
£12.59
Open Letter History A Mess
Book SynopsisA satirical novel that questions just how far we'll go to promote was we wish was true
£12.56
Deep Vellum Publishing Calligraphy Lesson: The Collected Stories
Book Synopsis"A welcome volume of stories from Russia's finest contemporary fiction writer, Mikhail Shishkin, full of his typical fusing of mysticism and modernist experimentation." --Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal The first English-language collection of short stories by Russia's greatest contemporary author, Mikhail Shishkin, the only author to win all three of Russia's most prestigious literary awards. Often included in discussions of Nobel Prize contenders, Shishkin is a master prose writer in the breathtakingly beautiful style of the greatest Russian authors, known for complex, allusive novels about universal and emotional themes. Shishkin's stories read like modern versions of the eternal literature written by his greatest inspirations: Boris Pasternak, Ivan Bunin, Leo Tolstoy, and Mikhail Bulgakov. Shishkin's short fiction is the perfect introduction to his breathtaking oeuvre, his stories touch on the same big themes as his novels, spanning discussions of love and loss, death and eternal life, emigration and exile. Calligraphy Lesson spans Shishkin's entire writing career, including his first published story, the 1993 Debut Prize--winning "Calligraphy Lesson," and his most recent story "Nabokov's Inkblot," which was written for a dramatic adaptation performed in Zurich in 2013. Mikhail Shishkin (b. 1961 in Moscow) is one of the most prominent names in contemporary Russian literature. A former interpreter for refugees in Switzerland, Shishkin divides his time between Moscow, Switzerland, and Germany.Trade ReviewWorld Literature Today Editor's Pick: Summer Reads (2015) "Shishkin tends not to be sentimental or idealistic-- indeed, he is usually quite the opposite--and this gives the more positive or transcendent moments extra punch." -- Sibelan Forrester, The Slavic Review "Shishkin is virtuosic, his subjects move through others' stories in dizzying/awe-inspiring ways. Incredible!" -- Maaza Mengiste, author of Beneath the Lion's Gaze "Though the stories in CALLIGRAPHY LESSON are steeped in Russian history and have a distinctly Russian tone, many of the philosophical quandaries they engage extend beyond language and borders -- they are universal problems, and this translation boldly and successfully takes them on." -- Caroline North, Dallas Observer "Shishkin is fantastically, magically talented." -- Julie Hersh, Music & Literature "Compact, and at times riveting to read, this collection delivers a well-rounded portrait of Russian's most acclaimed contemporary writer." -- Lucy Renner Jones, Words Without Borders "An ideal introduction to Shishkin and his work." -- Michael Orthofer, Complete Review "Nothing I read about [Shishkin], however, quite prepared me for the desperate urgency of CALLIGRAPHY LESSON, as if its lyricism were only a last match struck against the darkness. His prose breathes life -- doesn't breathe it, gasps it, aware of the perishability of words, of worlds dying in each instant, and us dying with them, as life is beaten out of us second by second." -- Cynthia Haven, The Book Haven "Characters with great pathos navigate a distinctly post-Soviet bedlam ... The collection consists of artfully constructed, empathetic tales of people living in the midst cyclonic time." -- Jacob Kiernan, New Orleans Review "I highly recommend Calligraphy Lesson for the beautiful language, moving stories and the emotional characters." -- The Book Binder's Daughter "Complex and allusive ... juxtaposed with autobiographical -- and at times overtly politicised -- narratives ... [the final story] takes us beyond fiction and into the realm of the philosophical essay ... the collection stands at the nexus between Shishkin's novelistic output and his increasingly outspoken forays into the political arena ...In CALLIGRAPHY LESSON, he celebrates art's -- and, more specifically, language's -- capacity to elevate us to the time-annihilating plateau." -- Leo Shtutin, Open Democracy "Shishkin's life-affirming language posits transcendence." -- Robert H. McCormick Jr., World Literature Today "Shishkin's agile, inventive narration reveals his homeland anew, showing once again why he has become one of Russia's most valued storytellers--and an important new author in the West." -- Literalab "[A] skillful achievement of complex, stylistic prose to evoke poignant themes common to all people, including love, life, family, and death. [Shishkin's] particular style is impressionistic, which matches the characteristics of his dominating theme: language." -- Daniel P. Haeusser, Reading 1000 Lives
£12.35
Deep Vellum Publishing The Indian
Book Synopsis"A beautiful but disturbing portrait of a misfit painfully aware that he's not like anyone else." --NPR Former comedian (and mayor) Jon Gnarr now turns his lens from politics to tell his life story in his literary debut.The Indian is a highly entertaining and bittersweet literary memoir by Jon Gnarr, the world-famous Icelandic comedian and former Mayor of Reykjavik,Iceland, revisiting his troubled childhood. Diagnosed as "retarded" because of his severe dyslexia and ADHD, Gnarr spent time in a "home for retarded children" before getting out, only to find himself subjected to constant bullying, leading the young Gnarr to identify with the Indians against bully cowboys on TV. The Indian is the first book in a trilogy that looks back at Gnarr's childhood and adolescence, providing the unparalleled coming of age story of an outcast who overcame the odds and matured into a world-renowned comedian, actor, writer, and politician. Each book in the trilogy is told with the warmth and humor that defines Gnarr's unique personality, allowing readers of all ages to identify with his story.Trade Review"Let "normal" people have their 'normal' heroes. The rest of us have Jon Gnarr, and the world's a better place for it." --Michael Schaub, NPR "Loved The Indian. Am adding "lice-rats" to my lexicon. No one will never know I stole it from the poor people of Blesugrof." --Doug Stanhope, via Twitter Critic's Pick: "By turns funny and despairing (Gnarr had ADHD and severe dyslexia as a child), as well as providing a glimpse into Icelandic culture beyond Bjork, The Indian is entertaining and enlightening." --Cary Darling, Fort Worth Star-Telegram "A dark memoir full of black humor that details the author's painful experiences as a child unable to fit in due to struggling with learning and emotional disorders, Gnarr's book illuminates the struggles that come from being considered broken. Written with cleverly shifting points of view, this haunting narrative invites readers to consider the trauma of an outcast child." --World Literature Today "Painful yet intensely beautiful." -- Nancy O'Donnell, Rochester (NY) Democrat & Chronicle "Gnarr's finest accomplishment in this book, surpassing others in the genre, is the absolute immediacy of the childhood experience... Gnarr returns those emotions--all the emotions of childhood--to their context, adding the suffering of learning them, finding new restrictions, fearing ones you don't know, and we relate to them once again. This is the gift of The Indian, the way that it makes the child, our child-self, alive, close to heart and mind, in all his pain and his happiness. The Indian is brave in this gift, and dares me to be brave too, enough to find the child of my past and make him present." P.T. Smith, Three Percent "A novel about self-discovery in a world where being different is of no good. It is an ingenious and bleak book, cleverly exploring the life of a ginger misfit, with writing that seamlessly blends Jon Gnarr's comedic abilities with an emotional connection that results in a need to learn everything there is to know about the boy who didn't fit in his surroundings and wanted to become an Indian." -- Denis Barbov, Graphic Policy "The Indian is refreshingly original because it not only speaks to a very specific subset of people who have learned to cope with, or are learning to cope with their learning disabilities, but also anyone who has ever experienced feeling like an outcast or alone in their childhood, aka: Everyone. Gnarr's story is incredibly relevant to all our lives and this is a book that needed to be written ...this story of Jon Gnarr, similarly to how it was necessary to write, is a book that must be read." -- Eilidh, via Young Adults Book Central "As a Psychiatrist I found this book to be amazing. I loved the juxtaposition between his experience and the excerpts before each chapter from various Psychiatrists. This is the best first-person account of the real neuro-biological differences that children with serious learning differences have. This is a bittersweet story but Gnarr's genius is in how he keeps the tone victorious. I loved this book." -- Adam Rekerdres, via Goodreads
£12.35
Deep Vellum Publishing Target in the Night
Book SynopsisOne of the BBC's Ten Books to Read (December 2015) "Ricardo Piglia may be the best Latin American writer to have appeared since the heyday of Gabriel Garcia Marquez." -- Kirkus Reviews "Piglia opens a window into a fascinating world, leaving the reader hungry for more." -- Publishers Weekly A passionate political and psychological thriller set in a remote Argentinean Pampas town, Target in the Night is an intense and tragic family history reminiscent of King Lear, in which the madness of the detective is integral to solving crimes. Target in the Night, a dark, philosophical masterpiece, won every major literary prize in the Spanish language in 2011. Ricardo Piglia (b. 1941), widely considered the greatest living Argentine novelist, has taught for decades in American universities, including most recently at Princeton.Trade Review"Piglia's postmodern, brainy and sometimes funny take on the detective thriller, and it's an absolute joy to read ... nothing in Target in the Night is anything less than original -- it works both as a clever detective novel and a surprising meditation on the complications of families and the way justice works in the modern world." -- Michael Schaub, NPR "Piglia is a talented storyteller and this is a compelling potboiler, but it's less Agatha Christie and more a tale about the transformation of the Argentine pampas. Piglia opens a window into a fascinating world, leaving the reader hungry for more." -- Publishers Weekly "A paranoid marvel ... unlike any detective novel you've read ... Target in the Night challenges the philosophical merit of a story whose mysteries can be succinctly concluded. It posits that a fear of death, and a fear of embracing a world where hard truth and meaning are nothing more than abstract, idealistic concepts, propels us to reconstruct the past and impose them where they don't exist, warping that past beyond recognition. Reality cannot be conformed to an easy, coherent narrative, and the more we try, the further submerged into darkness we become." -- Caroline North, Dallas Observer "Target in the Night is as much a historical novel as it is a detective novel; the author uses genre as a convenient package from which to break into a conversation about pressing matters of today." -- Olga Zilberbourg, The Common "Everything I want detective novels to be but rarely are -- paranoid, surreal, cynical, philosophical, but, above all, entertaining. Piglia's world is fully formed and constantly peeling back layers of complexity and intrigue. My favorite book of 2015." -- Justin Souther, Malaprop's Bookstore & Cafe (Asheville, NC) "Weird detective novel from South America with a Dupinian detective and a slippery sense of identity and community. Sign me up! So far I'm reminded of Where There's Love, There's Hate, the moments of sustained "sanity" in some of Cesar Aira work, and the more detective-y mytery-y sections of If On a Winter's Night a Traveler. Another weird, awesome book from Deep Vellum." -- Josh Cook, Porter Square Books (Cambridge, MA) "A richly nuanced and sometimes adventurous novel. Piglia's novel roams through discussion on philosophy, the Jungian analysis of dreams, and the nature of freedom, but hardly a page goes by without some subtle commentary or analysis of the recent history of Argentina, where "there are no values left, only prices." In Piglia's Argentina, corruption has twisted the rules of the game so that only the innocent and the idealists are doomed." -- Terry Pitts, Vertigo "If you love paranoid pomo detective novels about neoliberal dictatorship in the Southern Cone, try Ricardo Piglia's Target in the Night." -- Aaron Bady "With a rich cast of enigmatic and colorful characters, Piglia's tale simmers with intrigue and thrilling subtlety... effortlessly blends the best elements of both literary and detective fiction. with measured plotting and a carefully constructed narrative (and a jungian dream machine!), Piglia adeptly uses his characters to reveal multiple perspectives - deftly playing their motivations and assumptions against one another." -- Jeremy Garber, bookseller, Powell's Books (Portland, OR)
£12.35
Deep Vellum Publishing Life Went on Anyway: Stories
Book SynopsisThe stories in Ukrainian film director, writer, and dissident Oleh Sentsov’s debut collection are as much acts of dissent as they are acts of creative expression. These autobiographical stories display a mix of nostalgia and philosophical insight, written in a simple yet profound style looking back on a life's path that led Sentsov to become an internationally renowned dissident artist. Sentsov's charges seemingly stem from his opposition to Russia's invasion and occupation of eastern Ukraine where he lived in the Crimea. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison in August 2015 on spurious terrorism charges after he was kidnapped in his house and put through a grossly unfair trial by a Russian military court, marred by allegations of torture. Many of the stories included here were read during international campaigns by PEN International, the European Film Academy, and Amnesty International, among others, to support the case for Sentsov across the world. Sentsov's final words at his trial, "Why bring up a new generation of slaves?" have become a rallying cry for his cause. He spent 145 days on hunger strike in 2018 to urge the Russian authorities to release all Ukrainians unfairly imprisoned in Russia, an act of profound courage that contributed to the European Parliament's awarding him the prestigious Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought Sentsov remains in a prison camp in Russia. It is the publisher's hope this book, published in collaboration with PEN Ukraine, contributes to his timely release.Trade Review"One thing that makes Life Went on Anyway especially endearing is Sentsov’s terrible sense of humor on every second page...One gets the seriousness of humor, its therapeutic and satirical roles, upon realizing that jokes have made room in the somber confines of prison walls. This is the reason why Life Went on Anyway is a must-read testimony of the indomitable human spirit that is beyond the reach of fascist regimes. The translation of this memoir into English is a deserved celebration of this unwavering human spirit against all odds." ―Shelly Bhoil, Asymptote
£12.35
Mandel Vilar Press Kill the Ámpaya! The Best Latin American
Book Synopsis"If baseball is really a metaphor for life, then Kill the Ampaya -- Dick Cluster's wonderful collection of Latin American baseball stories -- is an astonishing record of its beauty and coarseness, redemption and tragedy. You don't have to be a baseball fan to appreciate these stories, each one hinged on baseball directly or indirectly, and delight in this reading."-Achy Obejas, author of The Tower of Antilles and Other Stories "These are stories we have lived...Some are funny, some cruel or violent, but in the end they are part of our culture that makes us act the way we do. They make me think of the millions of stories that got lost behind us." -Omar Vizquel, from Venezuela, one of baseball's all-time best fielding shortstops who played for the Seattle Mariners, Cleveland Indians, San Francisco Giants, Texas Rangers, Chicago White Sox, and Toronto Blue Jays. "Baseball is in the soul of millions in Puerto Rico and the other countries that play the game with a Latino flair. These stories are portraits of its place in our lives." -Benjie Molina, former Texas Rangers catcher and first base coach. A rich variety of baseball fiction exists south of the Florida Straits and the Rio Grande, but almost none available in English. This collection translates for the first time stories ranging from the highly literary to the vernacular. These inventive and entertaining stories reveal the place of baseball in Latin America. Mixing fan and fandom, baseball and politics, rural and urban life, sexism and poverty, Kill the Ampaya! reveals how baseball shapes the social fabric of everyday Latin American life. The collection includes well known writers such as Leonardo Padura from Cuba (The Man Who Loved Dogs), Sergio Ramirez from Nicaragua (Divine Punishment, A Thousand Deaths Plus One). Others are well known writers in their home countries such as Arturo Arango and Eduardo del Llano in Cuba, Alexis Gomez Rosa and Jose Bobadilla in the Dominican Republic, Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro in Puerto Rico, Vicente Lenero in Mexico as well as emerging literary figures such as Salvador Flejan and Rodrigo Blanco Calderon in Venezuela, Sandra Tavarez and Daniel Reyes German in the D.R., Carmen Hernandez Pena in Cuba.Trade Review"A revelation! Baseball fans know how much passion and skill Latin American players bring to the game. Now, thanks to Kill the Ampaya!, we learn that the same flair is on display in Latin American baseball literature. To quote one of the many great lines in these fascinating stories --'This jonron is for you'."--Peter Abrahams, The New York Times bestselling author of twenty-five books including Down the Rabbit Hole, Behind the Curtain, Reality Check, A Perfect Crime, Pressure Drop, and The Fan. "These are stories we have lived ... Some are funny, some cruel or violent, but in the end they are part of our culture that makes us act the way we do. They make me think of the millions of stories that got lost behind us."--Omar Vizquel, from Venezuela, one of baseball's all-time best fielding shortstops who played for the Seattle Mariners, Cleveland Indians, and the San Francisco Giants. "Baseball is in the soul of millions in Puerto Rico and the other countries that play the game with a Latino flair. 1hese stories are portraits of its place in our lives."--Benjie Molina, from Puerto Rico, former catcher for the Los Angeles Angels, Toronto Blue Jays and the San Francisco Giants. "It's time we recognized that Latin America is the soul of baseball, and 'Kill the Ampaya' takes us straight to the heart of that soul."-- Scott Ostler, sportswriter, San Francisco ChronicleTable of ContentsIntroduction ...4 Eduardo del Llano, Swimming Upstream ...29 Sandra Tavarez, Sacrifice ...39 Sergio Ramirez, Apparition in the Brick Factory ...42 Carmen Hernandez Pena, End of the Game ...55 Rodrigo Blanco Calderon, The Last Voyage of Arcaya the Shark ...63 Arturo Arango, The Stadium ...79 Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro, Braces ...90 Alexis Gomez Rosa, The Real Thing ...96 Leonardo Padura, The Wall ...105 Nan Chevalier, Winners and Losers ...117 Jose Bobadilla, The Strange Game of the Men in Blue ...128 Rafael Acevedo, Clock Reaches the Emperor's Citadel ...146 Salvador Flejan, Big Leagues ...151 Daniel Reyes German, How Tomboy Maria Learned She Could Fly ...164 Andres Eloy Blanco, The Glory of Mamporal ...176 Cezanne Cardona, An Infamous Home Run ...186 Marcial Gala, The Pitcher ...197 Vicente Lenero, Aut At Third ...202 Further Reading ...209 Acknowledgments ...211
£13.29
Dalkey Archive Press Fragile Travelers
Book SynopsisPetar, a devoted family man, leaves his apartment to buy some coffee and goes missing. While his wife is desperately looking for him, he finds himself trapped in another woman’s dreams. As one dream encounter follows the other, Petar and the dreamer, Emilija, become aware of the spiritual and emotional emptiness that exists within them. Will they allow their connection to transcend the metaphysical domain to attain the real and corporeal? Fragile Travelers is a compelling story of an improbable intimacy between two people, introduced and closed by an omniscient narrator but told almost entirely in the alternating voices of Emilija and Petar. With its subtle lyricism and well-paced humor, Fragile Travelers takes the reader on a journey that explores the emotional emptiness of modern life, but gives its protagonists a chance to search for a meaningful existence—if nowhere else—at least in dreams.Trade ReviewŽivanović suspends reality in this delicate, beautiful short book to explore the questions plaguing humankind and pay homage to the power and importance of having a connection with another -- a soul mate to offer support in life and in the darkest corners of the mind * Publishers Weekly *[A] subtle, intimate, lyrical, even hopeful and humorous meditation on the human desire for happiness, in one world or another * Asymptote *[A] search for meaning in a soulless global culture that reads like a Woody Allen riff on Kafka. * World Literature Today *
£9.99
Dalkey Archive Press The Antibody
Book SynopsisA mysterious character from the city arrives at a peaceful country village, attracting the interest of Josu, a young adolescent. José Luis, the newly arrived vicar, is the ideal mentor for any rebellious boy with a curious heart. More comfortable sneaking around and spying on people from the rooftops than playing with others in the mud, Josu delves into the memories of the newly arrived vicar’s troubled past. Julio José Ordovás’s skillfully woven and fearless narrative tells of an unlikely friendship between two rebellious characters at different times in their lives. His debut novel promises an unrestrained, uncensored narration, leaving nothing untold. Taken from the adult Josu’s perspective, this nostalgic narration demonstrates the author’s striking ability to present a spectrum of human emotions with distinct ironic undertones.
£12.07
Dalkey Archive Press Angel Station
Book SynopsisAngel Station takes its title from the bustling Metro stop in the Prague district of Smíchov. Until the gentrification of the late 1990s, it was a rough-and-tumble, working-class neighborhood with a sizeable Roma and Vietnamese population. Topol’s novel, in sparse yet poetic language-agilely brought into English by the author’s longtime translator Alex Zucker-weaves together the brutal and disturbing fates of an addict, a shopkeeper, and a religious fanatic as they each follow the path they hope will lead them to serenity: drugs, money, and faith.Trade ReviewA graphic, grungy tale of addiction and consequences. * Kirkus Reviews *
£10.99
Dalkey Archive Press The Irish Sea
Book SynopsisAt a New Year’s Eve party, a dead woman turns up alive again, after passing through a mysterious post-mortem way station located on another planet, and much to the disbelief of her old flame, who interprets the night’s events with the help of his reading of Kafka. A priest is sent by the Vatican to investigate a strange development in the American cattle market: a breed of cows identical in all physical respects to human women. A man leaves his wife and flees to the north of Spain, where he meets a sickly woman in an empty café, introduces himself as Jorge Walser, and makes plans with her to disappear. Aboard a trans-atlantic cruise, a door-to-door vacuum salesman bumps into a woman who appears to be Natassja Kinski, and they swap tall tales as the ship floats them asymptotically toward world’s end. Christ turns out to be a girl who fronts a punk band. The words of such writers as Beckett, Walser, Chekhov, Gombrowicz, Bolaño, Kafka, Blanchot, and Borges are characters in themselves. The Irish Sea is a novel masquerading as a book of short stories. A meditation on the paradox of nostalgia, which always seems to pine for what never was. A fevered search for order through writing, of truth through literature, of the nodal point where life and literature intersect. A strange personal gallery curated by a razor-sharp reader and his other, unknown self.Trade Review[A]n infinite story . . . a reflection on literature, fiction, and truth * Aladar Magazine *
£9.99
Open Letter The Incompletes
Book SynopsisA world-spanning intellectual thriller by a contemporary Argentinian master.
£13.49
Open Letter The Teacher
Book SynopsisThe story of a Holocaust survivor who spent her life trying to disappear, based on true events.
£13.49
Open Letter Four By Four
Book SynopsisA haunting depiction of a sinister boarding school in a world veering toward chaos.
£14.39
Open Letter Cars On Fire
Book Synopsisa collection of stories focussing on life as a woman and as an immigrant.
£13.49
Open Letter Clerk
Book SynopsisLove, sex, and corporate slavery in a futuristic world from the two-time winner of the Dashiell Hammett Prize.
£14.39
Scribe Publications Pty Ltd The Death of Murat Idrissi
Book Synopsis
£12.75
University of Massachusetts Press Leaving Pico: A Novel
Book SynopsisIn the insular Portuguese fishing community of Provincetown, Josie Carvalho's life has been shaped by the annual influx of summer tourists and his great aunt's fervent, if idiosyncratic, Catholicism. The counterweight to these forces has always been Josie's relationship with his grandfather John Joseph, a drunk, clam-poaching old man who is nevertheless a sly and masterful storyteller.After a stranger starts dating Josie's mother and upsets the family's equilibrium, John Joseph heals the rift with the colorful and adventurous stories of their ancestor, Francisco Carvalho, a Portuguese explorer who just may have beaten Columbus to the New World. With the guidance of these obscure but inspired tales, Josie begins to find new ways of understanding his family and the outside world. This new edition of Leaving Pico makes Frank X. Gaspar's award-winning coming-of-age novel accessible to a new generation of readers.
£16.10
Archipelago Books January
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£14.39
Penguin Random House Group A Question of Belonging
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£14.39
Skyhorse Publishing The Piano Tuner: A Novel
Book SynopsisThis bestseller and winner of every major literary award in Taiwan is an elegiac novel about love and loss, broken dreams and desolate hearts—and music: "A delightful read."—Ha Jin A widower grieving for his young wife. A piano tuner concealing a lifetime of secrets. An out-of-tune Steinway piano. A journey of self-discovery across time and continents, from a dark apartment in Taipei’s red-light district to snow-clad New York. At the heart of the story is the nameless narrator, the piano tuner. In his forties, he is balding and ugly, a loser by any standard. But he was once a musical prodigy. What betrayal and what heartbreak made him walk away from greatness? Long hailed in Taiwan as a “writer’s writer,” Chiang-Sheng Kuo delivers a stunningly powerful, compact novel in The Piano Tuner. It’s a book of sounds: both of music and of the heart, from Rachmaninoff to Schubert, from Glenn Gould to Sviatoslav Richter, from untapped potential to unrequited love. With a cadence and precision that bring to mind Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Nocturnes, and Yasunari Kawabata’s Snow Country, this short novel may be a portrait of the artist as a “failure,” but it also describes a pursuit of the ultimate beauty in music and in love. Trade Review"An elegant novel, told with restraint and acute perceptions. A delightful read."—Ha Jin"So much is packed into this compact and surprising novel: a complex story of genius, madness, and thwarted desire and, beyond that, a deep exploration of the tension between craft and the pursuit of fame. The Piano Tuner is about more than music—it’s about the choices one makes in becoming an artist."—Shawna Yang Ryan, author of Green Island"The Piano Tuner is as meticulous in its excavation of loneliness as it is in its exploration of music. I was completely pulled into the narrative as it peeled back layer after layer, exposing the interiority and secrets of the beguiling piano tuner. This book is a quiet masterpiece."—Dur e Aziz Amna, author of American Fever“A rare masterpiece . . . Kuo has told a spellbinding story about love, obsession, loss, and the inscrutable power of music.”—David Der-wei Wang, Edward C. Henderson Professor of Chinese Literature, Harvard University"Kuo writes with sharp erudition--about music, history, instruments, geography--creating a multivocal repertoire spotlighting displaced love and unfulfilled opportunity. . . . Lyrically translated by the revered duo Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin."—Shelf Awarenesss "Chiang-Sheng Kuo’s novel The Piano Tuner explores the accord and dissonance between sounds and souls through language. . . . The mood of love transcends the language barrier like music, for the emotional atmosphere of the book is infused with hybrid aesthetics that invoke this sentiment."—Asymptote“The Piano Tuner captures subtle and almost inexpressible emotions, calling on the reader to resonate, to hear both the rhythm of the piano and the voice of the heart.”─Jiao Yuanpu , author of Amusement in Black and White and Hearing Chopin“Implicit but tense, this text is like superb fingering interpreting a lonely and poignant love song. . . . It is a transcendence of novel-writing skills.”—OPENBOOK Best Book Prize citation (Taiwan)“[In The Piano Tuner], through the filtering and precipitation of time, love crystallizes yet is restrained. With it comes an equal portion of loneliness, accumulating vastly and released slowly, which is refreshing.”─Zhu Tian-wen, winner of the Newman Prize for Chinese Literature
£18.00
Les Fugitives Exposition
Book SynopsisEverything can be exhibited: trinkets from the Second French Empire, a collection of photographs, a boudoir from beyond the grave, a heroine famous for her beauty, her extravagance and her pitiful end. Everything can be exposed: a woman for another woman... , the fear of one's own body, a way of entering a scene, the thrill of seduction, abandonment, the reassurance of objects, a ruin. Over the course of four decades, the Countess Virginia Oldoini returned to the same Paris studio to be photographed, posing in different tableaux to mark the moments of her life, real and imagined. A fascination with 'La Castiglione' led Nathalie Leger to weave together this imaginative proto-biography. Mysterious yet over-exposed, adored and despised for her beauty in equal measure, Castiglione was a flamboyant aristocrat, mistress of Napoleon III and a rumoured spy. Examining the myths around icons past and present, Leger meditates on the half-truths of portrait photography, reframing her own family history in the process.Trade Review‘In Leger’s hands, desolation can reveal a woman in all her multiplicity—in her ugliness and abasement and determined self-destruction, seemingly ground down to the nubs of her sorrow, but ultimately emerging with a strange richness, full of haunted persistence, droll knowingness, untamed desires, and hardscrabble resilience.’ —Leslie Jamison, Bookforum; ‘These Leger books are lush, obsessive, and self-reflective (…) Nathalie Leger's transcendent triptych of books about fallen-off-the-path female artists (...) deftly observes how we are all often absorbed into the wave of our own familial and inherited traumas, and how we might resist them.’ — Nathan Scott McNamara, Los Angeles Review of Books; ‘[F]or Leger the archive and literature are mutually informing. The neutral intellectualism of the former and the subjective affectivity of the latter exist in a dyadic relationship. This tension is a source of the great power of Leger’s extraordinary short books.’ David McCooey, Sydney Review of Books; ‘Highbrow but highly readable; delving deep yet luminous (…) Through artistic evocation, stream of consciousness, historical detail and personal memory, the author guides us into a world where images become masks of the real.’ —ELLE (France); ‘A subtle novel that explores femininity and its magic spells. Bewitching.’ — Vogue Paris; ‘A tour de force.’ — Natasha Lehrer; ‘Nathalie Leger’s superbly original Exposition is a biographical novel meditating on the nature of biography itself.’ —Charlie Stone, The Arts Desk; ‘Leger’s vigorous work consistently satisfies, with ideas crystallizing with the clarity of a photograph.’ —Publishers Weekly; ‘I’ve just re-read Suite for Barbara Loden by Nathalie Leger, translated by Cecile Menon and Natasha Lehrer, as well as the two forthcoming books that form a trilogy with that one: The White Dress, also translated by Lehrer, and Exposition, translated by Amanda Demarco. All three defy categorisation—history, essay, memoir, fiction. I admire the wholeness and agility of these works very much.’ —Catherine Lacey; ‘This trilogy feels more than a feminist recovery of narrative: it is a method through which the lives of women artists are reimagined and remade through the writer herself, a mode of hospitality in which lives coalesce and transform one another.’ —Katie Da Cunha Lewin, The White Review; ‘The word triptych, not trilogy. Because the books are not a straight line. The books scoff at straight lines, reveal how any line can look straight if you’re zoomed too far in. The books are not discrete episodes, they are all one thing, they are all one project.’ —Kyle Williams, Full Stop; ‘With ferocity and pathos, Leger enters into a standing-with relationship with these other women only to realize she’s been in touch with herself the entire time. This feels to me like the natural movement of the most revelatory art criticism—to move close to the work, to ride along then pierce the work’s textured surface into its mysterious netherworld then looping back out (through innards) towards these words you hear out there in the private distance only to find them coming from your own mouth. With all of these women—Countess of Castiglione, Barbara Loden and Wanda (and Alma H Malone), and Pippa Bacca—Leger comes to know them as women who lived rich lives, artists’ lives, intensely felt.’ —Jay Ponteri, Essay Daily; ‘The suffocating interpolations of being a woman have concealed the words of so many: Pippa Bacca, whose seemingly naive project is now bound to her rape and murder; American actor and director Barbara Loden, whose project of semi-autobiographical film Wanda details the listlessness of life for the 1970s American housewife; The Countess of Castiglione, whose hope had been to exhibit her photos at the upcoming 1900 International Exposition; and Leger’s own mother, whose words ‘too have been hidden away.’ The triptych not only unearths the lost narratives of noted women; but more significantly the writers’ reckoning with her own mother—’I never helped her, I never stood up for her’—suggests that the triptych’s aim is to give voice to one woman: her mother.’ —Clancey D’Isa, Chicago Review of Books; ‘Now that all three books exist in English thanks to Dorothy Project and exceptional translations by Natasha Lehrer and Amanda DeMarco, it feels as if the stakes have been tripled. Though each book is a case study of a particular woman’s life, the neat boundaries of these subjects aren’t meant to hold. ‘On the winding path of femininity,’ Leger writes, ‘the loose stone you stumble over is another woman.’ These slippages are part of the danger and excitement of Leger’s work—look long enough at another woman, and you may find yourself looking in a mirror.’ —Laura Marris, On the Seawall
£10.80
Les Fugitives The Living Days
Book SynopsisA chance encounter on Portobello Road incites an unsettling, magnetic attraction between Mary, an elderly white woman, and Cub, a British-Jamaican boy, and drives her crumbling world into heightened delusion. The two struggle to keep their footing as white supremacy, desperation and class conflict collide on the streets of London. Through exquisite juxtaposition, Ananda Devi exposes the tensions of an increasingly nationalistic and polarised metropolis. At once realistic and fantastical, The Living Days encapsulates Devi's daring, unflinching talent and paints an unforgettable portrait of London at it's most bewitching, and most dangerous.Trade ReviewUK reviews: 'The Mauritian author explores how legacies of colonialism and empire persist amid acts of cruelty and violence in London ... A meditation on urban inequality, in which the politics of race and class loom large.' (Guardian).'This is a novel of great beauty as well as discomfiting disclosure. Ananda Devi's writing challenges us to reconfigure our own beliefs about right and wrong and to look beyond our own comfortable lives to consider the reality of others. ' (New Internationalist). ''Mary Grimes, the central character of The Living Days exists, like the novel itself, in a liminal space between the possible and the mythic; between material being and ghostly half-life... This is not a novel which offers any reassurance. We never enter a settled space of familiarity. Even within the internal logic of the novel, the nature of what we are reading becomes unstable... Living Days is never a predictable novel, indeed it is never less than perplexing and unsettling.' (The Irish Times). `Beautifully written, visceral and ecstatic. Unafraid, as Angels might be, to bear witness to the force of entropy pulling us all towards death.' (Preti Taneja, author of We That Are Young). `A demanding and important book by a true artist and a great writer'.' (Lara Pawson, author of This Is the Place To Be).`; US reviews: 'Devi is alert to the ways in which social forces, such as racism and ageism, are reshaping London's already complex post-colonial landscape, and her fluid, poetic language memorably conjures a union of two outcasts.' (The New Yorker). The finest Mauritian novelist at work today, Ananda Devi has long been the francophone saint of the outcast, the oppressed, and the derelict. This fluid translation of one of her darkest works gives the reader a glimpse at her profound talent and her unique ability to synthesize political rage with poetic lyricism.' (Adam Hocker, Albertine). 'Brutal and entirely believable, a gorgeous and haunting depiction of London and the real lives and memories of those unseen within it.' (Publishers Weekly). 'A gorgeously written, profoundly upsetting fairy tale of race, class, power, and desire.' (Kirkus Reviews, starred review); French reviews: 'A fierce portrait of our times. . . Sensual and provocative writing, woven of dreams and nightmares, which slowly closes around the reader and holds them in its grasp.' (Le Monde des Livres). 'Old age always bears a private violence. Ananda Devi describes its inevitable symptoms whilst ever letting us glimpse an illusion of spring.' (L'Humanite).
£10.80
Les Fugitives The White Dress
Book SynopsisOn 8 March 2008 the Italian performance artist Pippa Bacca set out to hitchhike from Milan to Jerusalem in a wedding dress, documented with a video camera. On 31 March her body was found in woods on the outskirts of Istanbul. In telling the young woman's story, which overwhelms her and inexorably draws her in, Leger recounts the different stages of her research and the writing of the book. She strikes upon something fundamental within Bacca's performance: the desire to remedy the unfathomable nature of violence and war. Ultimately, she must face up to the failure of the young woman's endeavour. As she surveys the terrain of performance art and continues her examination of portrayals of the female condition, as in her earlier books, Leger explores the existential mystery and harsh truths expressed in Bacca's work, and that of other performance artists. The White Dress closes what is now regarded as a trilogy that begins with Exposition and is followed by Suite for Barbara Loden.Trade Review'These Leger books are lush, obsessive, and self-reflective (...) Nathalie Leger's transcendent triptych of books about fallen-off-the-path female artists (...) deftly observes how we are all often absorbed into the wave of our own familial and inherited traumas, and how we might resist them.' -Nathan Scott McNamara, Los Angeles Review of Books; '[F]or Leger the archive and literature are mutually informing. The neutral intellectualism of the former and the subjective affectivity of the latter exist in a dyadic relationship. This tension is a source of the great power of Leger's extraordinary short books.' -David McCooey, Sydney Review of Books; 'Nathalie Leger is a melancholy sentinel. From book to book she writes with a hunter's instinct, questioning the motives of women who, through their oeuvre, transform their lives into a mystery.' -ELLE (France); 'The White Dress inspects the imaginary frontier between art and life.' -Liberation; 'More than just an exploration of a violent news story, The White Dress performs a subtle set of variations on the theme of remnants, of the ghosts that live within us.' -Le Monde des livres; 'The triptych doesn't just tell a story about mothers and daughters, about female pain and female beauty, about performance and shame, but-further down-a story about how art is made: how involuntary, how compulsive, and how merciless the relationship between artist and subject can be.' -Leslie Jamison, Bookforum; 'This trilogy feels more than a feminist recovery of narrative: it is a method through which the lives of women artists are reimagined and remade through the writer herself, a mode of hospitality in which lives coalesce and transform one another.' -Katie Da Cunha Lewin, The White Review; 'I've just re-read Suite for Barbara Loden by Nathalie Leger, translated by Cecile Menon and Natasha Lehrer, as well as the two forthcoming books that form a trilogy with that one: The White Dress, also translated by Lehrer, and Exposition, translated by Amanda Demarco. All three defy categorisation-history, essay, memoir, fiction. I admire the wholeness and agility of these works very much.' -Catherine Lacey; 'The White Dress shows Leger doing something new. Her melodious intertwining of another's story with her own recalls her other works, but this is an altogether darker, altogether more unashamedly melancholic exploration of narrative (...) Leger's message seems to be that to immerse oneself in other people's stories, whether out of pity or simple escapism, is only to find a projection of one's own life.' -Charlie Stone, The Arts Desk; 'Leger ponders Bacca's fate in the context of other female performance artists such as Marina Abramovic and Carolee Schneemann; she considers the hostile, brutal responses to their work, which highlight the threat of violence that shadows women's lives, especially when they attempt to take ownership of how they appear to others, to men. (...) For Leger, the important thing is that Bacca proceeded with her project, even if she did so hesitantly. In her books, Leger has documented her own difficulty in proceeding, as she comes up against various obstacles in her attempts to find her way into the stories of the women who interest her.' - Rachel Andrews, The Stinging Fly; 'Now that all three books exist in English thanks to Dorothy Project and exceptional translations by Natasha Lehrer and Amanda DeMarco, it feels as if the stakes have been tripled. Though each book is a case study of a particular woman's life, the neat boundaries of these subjects aren't meant to hold. 'On the winding path of femininity,' Leger writes, 'the loose stone you stumble over is another woman.' These slippages are part of the danger and excitement of Leger's work-look long enough at another woman, and you may find yourself looking in a mirror.' -Laura Marris, On the Seawall; 'The word triptych, not trilogy. Because the books are not a straight line. The books scoff at straight lines, reveal how any line can look straight if you're zoomed too far in. The books are not discrete episodes, they are all one thing, they are all one project.' -Kyle Williams, Full Stop; 'With ferocity and pathos, Leger enters into a standing-with relationship with these other women only to realize she's been in touch with herself the entire time. This feels to me like the natural movement of the most revelatory art criticism-to move close to the work, to ride along then pierce the work's textured surface into its mysterious netherworld then looping back out (through innards) towards these words you hear out there in the private distance only to find them coming from your own mouth. With all of these women-Countess of Castiglione, Barbara Loden and Wanda (and Alma H Malone), and Pippa Bacca-Leger comes to know them as women who lived rich lives, artists' lives, intensely felt.' -Jay Ponteri, Essay Daily; 'The suffocating interpolations of being a woman have concealed the words of so many: Pippa Bacca, whose seemingly naive project is now bound to her rape and murder; American actor and director Barbara Loden, whose project of semi-autobiographical film Wanda details the listlessness of life for the 1970s American housewife; The Countess of Castiglione, whose hope had been to exhibit her photos at the upcoming 1900 International Exposition; and Leger's own mother, whose words 'too have been hidden away.' The triptych not only unearths the lost narratives of noted women; but more significantly the writers' reckoning with her own mother-'I never helped her, I never stood up for her'-suggests that the triptych's aim is to give voice to one woman: her mother.' -Clancey D'Isa, Chicago Review of Books; 'Readers should not miss this smart, skillful reckoning with acts of selflessness, betrayal, and grief.' -Publishers Weekly (starred review); 'Leger weaves together the story of Bacca's journey, astute discussions of Marina Abramovic and Svetlana Alexievich, and an account of the injustice Leger's mother endured during her divorce. Leger grapples with her inability to understand the motivations of others, and with the ambiguity of giving voice to the silenced.' -New Yorker
£10.80
Charco Press Holiday Heart
Book SynopsisLucía and Pablo are Colombian immigrants who’ve built their lives together in the US yet maintain conflicting attitudes towards their homeland and the extent to which it defines their identity. After undergoing fertility treatment, Pablo finds himself excluded from raising their twins, and the new family situation seems to question the very nature of their relationship and of who they believed they were. In search of respite and time to reflect, Lucía takes the kids to her parents’ apartment in Miami. Meanwhile, Pablo learns he is suffering from a syndrome known as ‘Holiday Heart’. But is this just a break, or is it really the final days of their marriage?Trade ReviewBiblioteca de Narrativa Colombiana Prize (Finalist)"García Robayo writes with caustic insight, brittle humour and a fair whack of cynicism (...) Holiday Heart is brilliant." —The Guardian"Understated, lyrical, and delivers its insights by means of acute observation. (5 stars)" —The Arts Desk"Cunningly well achieved." —Irish Times"Holiday Heart is a poignant and searing story of love ending." —Gutter Magazine"Coombe’s translation brilliantly captures the bite in García Robayo’s humour." —iNews"One of Colombia’s greatest living writers." —The Monthly Booking"Brilliantly dramatises the disjunction between an idealized picture of life like sitting on a sunny beach and the reality of that life like getting sand caught in your teeth." —Lonesome ReaderBest Fiction Books of 2017 —New York Times (Español)"Darkly funny throughout, this examination of two lives will stay with you long after you read the final words and lay the book down." —Lunate"Every sentence in the book seems to be written with a scalpel infused with acid. " —Morning Star"Acute, provocative, concise and raw." —Translating Women"An incredibly insightful portrayal of a disintegrating marriage...provides a sharp-eyed view of estrangement and personal identity." —Book Riot"Frightening, alluring, and inescapable." —Books and Bao**********Praise for Margarita García RobayoCasa de las Américas Prize (Winner)Society of Authors Valle-Inclán Prize (Shortlist)"García Robayo’s prose bristles with restrained energy and a wry humour which captures the disaffection of her characters." —The Times Literary Supplement"[Fish Soup] is a gorgeous, blackly humorous look into the lives of Colombians struggling to find their place in society, both at home and abroad." —Publishers Weekly, starred review"A remarkable genre-bending effort." —The Guardian"The tackiness of the Caribbean coast and its discontents are marvellously rendered." —The Times Literary Supplement"If you’re a fan of Ottessa Moshfegh or Melissa Broder, then this is for you." —The Guardian"An evocative collection that conveys the potency of desire in even the most ordinary lives." —Kirkus"García Robayo is building one of the most solid and interesting oeuvres in Latin American literature."" —Juan Cárdenas , author of ORNAMENTAL"Her stories combine the atmosphere of Desperate Housewives, Hemingway’s iceberg theory and a memorable, bittersweet ending."" —Jorge Carrión , author of BOOKSHOPS"Margarita shows sharp insight into contemporary life. Her voice speaks with surreptitious irony and sophisticated psychological perception. She is the creator of an exceptional poetics of displacement."" —Juan Villoro , author of THE WITNESS"There are very few writers who can challenge expectations the way Margarita García Robayo does. Margarita is simply one of the best of the new generation that respects, yet no longer identifies with, the Latin American Boom."" —Mariana Enríquez , author of THINGS WE LOST IN THE FIRE"This is a text written from within the belly of the beast. (…) One of the most essential books of the year." —Asymptote"García Robayo’s prose is concise and startling, her voice versatile and capable of packing a serious punch." —LA Review of Books"One of the most potent figures of contemporary Latin American literature." —ABC Cultural"Full of everyday details that reveal the most vulnerable aspects of feminine subjectivity." —La Nación**********
£9.49
Charco Press A Musical Offering
Book SynopsisA lyrical celebration of storytelling, of childhood, and of the transformative power of music.Tracing a circular course that echoes Bach’s Goldberg Variations , Luis Sagasti’s second book to appear in English takes the guise of a musical scheherazade, recounting story after story, vibrating to celestial harmonies. From the music born of the sun to the music sent into space on the Voyager mission, from Rothko to rock music, from the composers of the concentration camps to a weeping room for Argentinian conscripts in the Falklands, A Musical Offering traverses the shifting sands of fiction and history.Trade ReviewSociety of Authors Valle-Inclán Prize (Winner)Republic of Consciousness Prize (Shortlist)"Fluidity, charm, emotion and disarming brushes of grace." —The Wall Street Journal"A bewitching suite of stories about music, heard and unheard." —The Arts Desk"A beautiful, fragmentary rendition which never strikes a false note." —Irish Times"A Musical Offering is less an attempt to write about music than to actually write music - using words as a new kind of notation."" —Will Ashon , author of CHAMBER MUSIC and STRANGE LABYRINTH"The literary equivalent of a symphony." —Books and Bao"Sagasti handles his elements masterfully, subtly and dexterously weaves new threads into his tapestry." —BookBlast"A work of immense complexity, great balance and extraordinary beauty." —The Monthly Booking"Sagasti manages to create a world rich in illuminations and philosophical reflections." —Morning Star"Sagasti’s careful contrapuntal construction weaves together an eclectic range of vignettes which transcend their parts, leaving an indelible emotional impact that defies rationalisation." —Gutter Magazine"I have gained knowledge I didn’t know I needed." —Joyzine"A veritable fugue of insights and literary forms, subtlety and humour." —Asymptote**********Praise for Luis SagastiSociety of Authors TA First Translation Prize (Shortlist)"A subtle marvel...a nimble writer who merits wider readership in English." —Kirkus"A genre-defying collection of associative musings on art, music, philosophy, and literature." —Publishers Weekly"Innovative, playful, and beautifully executed."" —Carlos Fonseca , author of COLONEL LAGRIMAS"Simply genius."" —Enrique Vila-Matas , author of DUBLINESQUE"A work of wonderful analogies and disparate historical footnotes." —Morning Star"Like Borges before him, Sagasti has produced a rare thing: a work of fiction as learned as it is fun." —Gary M. Perry, Foyles Charing Cross"Sagasti produces here a magnificent constellation of stories, and in doing so pays tribute to art." —Fnac"One hundred pages of pure intelligence, to be enjoyed listening to Sun Ra." —L’Arbre Vengeur**********
£8.54
Charco Press Fate
Book SynopsisThis novel focuses on a group of characters who are all in different ways endeavouring to take control of their fate. Their desire to lead a genuine existence forces them to confront difficult decisions, and to break out of comfortable routines.Karl and Marina have been together for ten years and have a young son, Simón. Karl is a German-born oboist at Argentina’s national orchestra, and Marina is a meteorologist. On a field trip, she meets fellow researcher Zárate, and what might have been just a fling starts to erode the foundations of her marriage. Then there is Amer, a dynamic and successful taxidermist. At a group therapy session for smokers, Amer falls for the younger Clara. While the relationship between Karl and Marina disintegrates, the love story between Amer and Clara is just beginning – or is it already at an end? One of Argentina’s leading contemporary writers, Jorge Consiglio portrays the inner worlds of these characters through the minute details of their everyday lives, laying bare their strivings and their frustrations with a wry gaze, and seeking in this close-up texture a deeper truth.Trade Review"A moving testament to the beauty and banality of human relationships." —Publishers Weekly"A masterpiece that refuses to stay still."** —Culture Trip**"Fate could be likened to a pointillist painting by Seurat, with each dab of colour and each descriptive passage contributing to what is finally a beautifully structured and brilliantly shimmering whole."** —New York Magazine (The Strategist UK)"In the realm of fiction, an author has total authority over their characters, and they can inject interactions with meaning and pattern-play in a way therapists warn us not to in our day to day lives. It takes a particular level of craftsmanship to do this at the level of the sentence, with the effortlessness that Consiglio seamlessly achieves, and to sweep a reader so tenderly into the progress." —White Review**"A muted and unhurried novel that insists on the validity of the imperfect present."** —Kirkus**"The beauty of this novel...is that it provides no answers, but many questions. It can be reflected upon, re-read, and reconsidered."** —BookBlast**"The language of Fate has teeth and claws."** —Books and Bao**"Fate is a rich tapestry of language, a sharp depiction of the vagaries of fate and a thoughtful meditation on the human condition."** —The Monthly Booking**"Consiglio’s writing aches with poetry through its attention and complexity."** —The Skinny**"Packed full of sensuality and written in fresh, candid prose."** —The Quietus**** Praise for Jorge Consiglio**"Employing a language that is sharp, concise and visceral, it proves his talent as a natural storyteller and as a social chronicler and poet of some refinement."** —Morning Star**"There is a timeless quality to Consiglio’s prose...a storyteller of rare ingenuity."** —Splice**"His stories are told with dispassionate realism while being varnished with a surrealist gloss, creating his own in-between style...Occasional poetic turns reminiscent of Pablo Neruda erupt within the narrative."** —Culture Trip**"[Consiglio] carves out a singular space by focusing on characters who do not quite have a place of their own."** —Full Stop**
£9.49
Charco Press Ramifications
Book SynopsisThe memories we return to most frequently are the most inaccurate, the least faithful to reality...This is the tragic realisation made by the narrator of Ramifications as he tries to make sense of the defining event of his childhood: the disappearance of his mother to join the Zapatista uprising that shook Mexico in 1994. Left behind with an emotionally distant father who is singularly unqualified to raise him, and an older sister who only wants to get on with being a teenager, he takes refuge in strange rituals that isolate him from his peers: favouring the left-hand side of his body, trying to tear leaves into perfect halves, obsessively shaping origami figures. Now, two decades older and withdrawn from the world, he folds and unfolds these memories, searching the creases for the truth of what happened to his mother, unaware that he is on the verge of a discovery that will destroy everything he believed he knew about his family.Award-winning Mexican author Daniel Saldaña París masterfully evokes a child’s attempts to interpret events beyond his understanding. Less a Bildungs-roman than a tale of arrested development, this story of a boy growing up in the aptly-named Educación neighbourhood of Mexico City is a rich and moving portrait of a life thwarted by machismo and secrecy.Trade ReviewDublin Literary Award (Longlist)"[S]trange and elegant. . . . París brilliantly explores memory, masculinity, and familial drama in equal measure. The result is an affecting account of arrested development." —Publishers Weekly"A Dostoyevskian tale set in the Mexico City of today." —Kirkus"Ramifications grapples with the earnest naivety of one experiencing trauma far too young." —New Statesman"Saldaña París excels at imbuing his earnest protagonist's effort to write himself free from his memories with levity, which MacSweeney — a highly gifted translator who seems to specialize in voice-driven and tonally complex books — conveys beautifully." —NPR.org"Saldaña París brilliantly folds this story into itself, deftly dissolving time and reality, while constructing an intricate, intimate origami of heartbreak, dark humor, familial fractures and profound dispossession."" —Tanaïs , author of BRIGHT LINES"Saldaña París is the Mexican Philip Roth."" —Ottessa Moshfegh , author of EILEEN"Ramifications is a masterful and devastating fairy tale about the particular loneliness of a child lost in the woods of machismo and social revolts."" —Alejandro Zambra , author of BONSÁI and WAYS OF GOING HOME"A deft examination on the nature of truth." —The Skinny"Paced like a detective thriller, this slim novel contains hard-boiled meditations on masculinity, personal responsibility and the plasticity of memory." —Seattle Times"In Daniel Saldaña París’s resonant novel Ramifications, an eventful summer has ripple effects that last decades. . . . a rich, smart, and satisfying rendering of abandonment and loss, whose effects reverberate through time." —Foreword Reviews"[A] sinister little book suffused with a biting humor and morbid curiosity. " —Uriel Perez, BookPeople"A captivating novel by one of the most important figures in contemporary Mexican literature." —Morning Star"the reader is drawn into an almost memoir-like story, interjecting snippets of real-time Mexican history with the dreamlike quality of being stuck within a house." —Sounds & Colours"When the revelation arrives, it comes as a punch in the guts, one the reader feels as much as the narrator does." —Tony's Reading List************Praise for Daniel Saldaña ParísEccles Centre and Hay Festival Writers Award Winner"Brief, brilliantly written, and kissed by a sense of the absurd. . . . Like a much lazier, Mexico City version of Dostoevsky's Underground Man ." —NPR Fresh Air"Great fun are the jabs at academia, Mexico City and the dusty town where the action, or inaction, moves after Rodrigo meets Marcelo, a Spanish cretin with a Ph.D. in aesthetics. These flameless flaneurs humph and hump, personifying urban malaise." —New York Times Sunday Book Review"Full of odd twists and surprises. Among the high points are Saldana Paris' exasperated but affectionate paeans to 'the immense, beautiful city' that is Mexico's capital. Though a study of slothfulness and its discontents, a welcome book on which the author has clearly expended energy." —Kirkus"The novel takes some bizarre turns as Marcelo leads Rodrigo into experiments involving drugs, tequila, hypnosis and more, all in the name of transformation. If the young man's notion of radical change is to take part in his life rather than observe it from afar, he's off to a good start."—New York Times"Saldana Paris's first novel to be translated Stateside is a leisurely story of slacking off that's nicely conveyed in a sharp, cynical tone. . . . Read this messy, shaggy picaresque for its ample page-by-page pleasures, which include devilishly clever syntax, a charming tendency to digress, and satisfying flashes of Rodrigo and Marcelo getting their act together." —Publishers Weekly"For all Saldana Paris' sharp wit, Among Strange Victims is about waking up to the world's brighter possibilities." —NPR
£9.49
