Search results for ""Author Natasha Wimmer""

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2018 MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZEThe Dinner Guest is Gabriela Ybarra’s prizewinning literary debut: a singular autobiographical novel piecing together the kidnap and murder of her grandfather by terrorists, reflecting on the personal impact of private pain and public tragedy.The story goes that in my family there’s an extra dinner guest at every meal. He’s invisible, but always there. He has a plate, glass, knife and fork. Every so often he appears, casts his shadow over the table, and erases one of those present. The first to vanish was my grandfather.In 1977, three terrorists broke into Gabriela Ybarra’s grandfather’s home, and pointed a gun at him in the shower. This was the last time his family saw him alive, and his kidnapping played out in the press, culminating in his murder. Ybarra first heard the story when she was eight, but it was only after her mother’s death, years later, that she felt the need to go deeper and discover more about her family’s past.The Dinner Guest is a novel, with the feel of documentary non-fiction. It connects two life-changing events – the very public death of Ybarra’s grandfather, and the more private pain as her mother dies from cancer and Gabriela cares for her. Devastating yet luminous, the book is an investigation, marking the arrival of a talented new voice in international fiction.

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'Glorious' New York Times'Endlessly inventive', Guardian, Best Books of 2016 'Wildly funny' Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies As Caravaggio, the libertine of Italy’s art world, and the loutish Spanish poet Quevedo aim to settle scores over the course of one brutal tennis match, the old European order edges closer to eruption.Across the ocean, in early sixteenth-century Mexico, the Aztec Empire is under the fatal grip of Hernán Cortés and his Mayan lover. While they scheme and conquer, fight and fuck, their domestic comedy will change the course of history, throwing the world – and Rome’s tennis match – into a mind-bending reverie of assassinations, executions, papal dramas, carnal liaisons and artistic revolution.Translated by Natasha Wimmer, the prize-winning translator of Roberto Bolaño's The Savage Detectives and 2666.

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A hallucinatory, revelatory, colonial revenge story in sixteenth-century Mexico, from the visionary author of Sudden Death'Glorious' i-DOne morning in 1519, conquistador Hernán Cortés rode into the floating city of Tenoxtitlan – today’s Mexico City – accompanied by his eight captains, his troops, and his two translators.Invited to a ceremonial meal with the steely princess Atotoxtli, sister and wife of the emperor Moctezuma, the Spanish nearly bungle their entrance into the city and its labyrinthine palace. Soon, one of Cortés’s captains, Jazmín Caldera, begins to question the ease with which they were welcomed, and wonders at the risks of getting out alive, much less conquering the empire.Moctezuma himself is at a political, spiritual and physical crossroads, relying on hallucinogens in a quest for any kind of answer from the gods. When Cortés and Moctezuma meet later that day, two worlds, empires, languages and possible futures collide.A hallucinatory, revelatory, colonial revenge story, You Dreamed of Empires brings to life Tenoxtitlan at its height – and reimagines its destiny. It sets afire the moment of conquest and turns it into a moment of revolution, in a novel so electric and so unique that it feels like a dream.Translated by Natasha WimmerPraise for Sudden Death‘Glorious’ New York Times‘Dazzlingly clever and thrillingly original’ Mail on Sunday‘So much fun to read’ Guardian‘Engaging, audacious and flat-out fun’ Vice‘The best kind of puzzle… esoteric and wildly funny’ Lauren Groff‘Ingenious’ Irish Times‘Endlessly inventive’ Financial Times

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The Way to Paradise interweaves the story of the painter Paul Gauguin with that of his grandmother, Flora Tristan. In 1844, Flora embarked on a tour of France to campaign for workers' and women's rights. In 1891, her grandson set sail for Tahiti, determined to escape civilisation and seek out inspiration to paint his primitive masterpieces. Flora died before her grandson was born, but their travels and obsessions unravel side by side in this absorbing novel.A rare study of passion, ambition and the determined pursuit of greatness in the face of illness, death and conservative forces, The Way to Paradise shows Mario Vargas Llosa at the peak of his powers.

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Between Parentheses collects Roberto Bolano’s nonfiction: fiercely opinionated articles, speeches, essays, and talks, as well as most of the newspaper columns he wrote during the last five years of his life, when fame had come to him at last. Here we have a tender account of his return to Chile, reflections on family life, impassioned takes on books by writers Bolano admired (or vehemently despised), and advice on how to write a short story. Between Parentheses fully lives up to Bolano’s own demands: “I ask for creativity from literary criticism, creativity on all levels.”

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A North American journalist in Paris is woken at 4 a.m. by a mysterious caller with urgent information. For V. S. Naipaul, the prevalence of sodomy in Argentina is a symptom of the nation’s political ills. Daniela de Montecristo (familiar to readers of Nazi Literature in the Americas and 2666) recounts the loss of her virginity. Arturo Belano returns to Mexico City and meets the last disciples of Ulises Lima, who play in a band called The Asshole of Morelos. Belano’s son Gerónimo disappears in Berlin during the Days of Chaos in 2005. Memories of a return to the native land. Argentine writers as gangsters. Zombie schlock as allegory …

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Dirty Havana Trilogy tells the story of Pedro Juan, an ex-radio journalist who wanders from one odd job to the next, half-disgusted and half-fascinated by his predicament. Working as a garbage-man, dealing on the black market, selling marijuana, and hustling lady tourists off the streets, Pedro Juan throws himself wholeheartedly into the pleasures of the flesh in his squalid surroundings: drink, sex and more sex. A visceral and unforgettable picaresque, a damning portrait of vice and poverty, and an insane journey into the condemned soul of a sexual deviant, Dirty Havana Trilogy is a Tropic of Cancer for these times.

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