Description
Book Synopsis‘Neither the old man nor Boga ever said more than was needed. And yet they understood each other perfectly.’
Over the course of a season, Boga and the old man work side by side on the sandbanks of the Paraná Delta, cutting reeds to sell to local basketweavers. But when the old man falls sick and dies, Boga abandons himself entirely to the river and the life of solitary drifting he has long yearned for.
Echoes of John Berger sound throughout the evocative prose of this great Argentinian writer. A twentieth-century classic, Southeaster is a central work in Haroldo Conti’s oeuvre.
Trade Review‘Southeaster is a meandering, estuarine version of a road novel, a watery Hemingway-meets-Camus tale of a loner exposed to the elements and in wordless search for some kind of purpose ... sensuous and meticulously observed ... a luminous and troubling South American classic.’
* Financial Times *
‘Haroldo Conti was one of the great Argentinian writers.’
-- Gabriel García Márquez
‘Haroldo is a river, a delta with many streams that embrace the islands as they pass. His literature is directed at the solitude of others, and it brings a warm embrace, in the same way the river does.’
-- Eduardo Galeano
‘The economy of his writing, impregnated with poetry and tenderness, is remarkable . . . Don’t be fooled by the story’s initial, quasi-bucolic, calm. A dramatic crescendo leads to the final roar.’
-- María Esther de Miguel * La Nación *
‘Haroldo Conti was one of Argentina's finest prose writers at the time he was “disappeared” by the military junta in the mid 1970s. He was fifty-one years old. This first publication of his work in English introduces us not only to one of South America's finest twentieth-century writers but to a world view, a landscape and a unique literary vision that is essential to our time.’
-- John Burnside
‘What a surprise and a treat. I was swept up in the great murky flow of it. Conti is a writer for whom place is character, not backdrop, and what a place, what a character. He’s a revelation.’
-- Tim Winton
'Readers in English can at last immerse themselves in the subtle, beautifully wrought journey of the voyager . . . Southeaster is one of the most original contributions to what Conti himself would term, in an interview in 1974, “a stylistically and imaginatively Argentine literature”.’
-- University of Professor John King (School of Comparative American Studies Warwick)
‘Conti’s work occurs at the point where landscape and human psychology meet and there’s a soulfulness to his writing that I find deeply touching and nourishing. One of the best books published this year.’
-- Foyle's Staff Picks
Southeaster is a meandering, estuarine version of a road novel, a watery Hemingway-meets-Camus tale of a loner exposed to the elements and in wordless search for some kind of purpose . . . sensuous and meticulously observed . . . a luminous and troubling South American classic.’
-- Melissa Harrison * Financial Times *
‘With his plain but indefatigably inventive descriptions, Conti conveys how “the river always changes” . . . In long winding sentences full of alternately subordinating clauses, Conti slackens the narrative to match the river’s pace . . . but Conti also knows how to make time buckle, and the last fifty pages . . . are exhilarating.’
-- Sophie Hughes * Times Literary Supplement *
‘Southeaster is a particularly rich evocation of interiority . . . organising a chaos of memories, observations, thoughts, and feelings into meaningfulness.’
-- Jessica Sequeira * Boston Review *
‘Despite the obvious romance of the delta, of Conti’s strange, distorting setting, this is not a novel which romanticises the lives of those who live in it. It leaves the reader with a savage beauty to contemplate, something contradictory, tense, and ultimately self-destructive in a way that seems to correspond with so much of Argentina’s recent history.’
* 3am Magazine *
‘Conti’s frequent change of tense and the rhythm of his translated prose echo the ever-changing nature of the water itself . . . a beautifully written story.’
* We Love This Book *
‘In this novel . . . man and nature coexist on every page, but the relationship is fathoms-deep and the indifference of the natural world strikes the loudest chord. There is no heavy-handed philosophising here, just gentle meditations and some wonderful writing . . . Special praise goes to Jon Lindsay Miles for his splendid translation.’
* Geographical Magazine *
‘The description of the waters and their changing moods elevate the river to a character in its own right.’
* Workshy Fop *
