Category: Spanish language lit month

Before by Carmen Boullosa

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Before by Carmen Boullosa

Mexican fiction

Original title – Antes

Translator – Peter Bush

Source – Personal copy

So now on to Mexico in this years Spanish lit month and the debut novel from Carmen Boullosa which came out in 1989.Carmen Boullosa is both a poet and novelist, she has written 17 novels so far and there is seven of those available in English translation. Two of which including this is from Deep Vellum, I have reviewed ebooks from them but have fallen out of love with ebooks and haven’t reviewed them. So as I have had a little extra money the last few months I have bought paper copies of their books to read.

One day in the middle of break. Maria Enela(that was her name, was or that’s what I rememember, and will stick with Enela) invited me into the hencoop with the. There were no hens or remains of hens. I suspected it was one of the nuns projects thay hadn’t taken root .. an abandoned building, clean for some reqason, dark and silent. I went in with her . Then the steps came close and she asked me “What sare those steps?”

“What do you think ?”I replied, nothing gto worry..”

“You know what I’m talking about,” she said “you know very well. I’m being followed … They old me to ask you

The otherworldlyness of the book, is that ghosts.

Before is told in the voice of a small girl, we see here looking back on her puberty a right of passage as she became a woman. Her sisters and her play with simple white pebbles together in the book make fantasy countries in lines with the stones but then they disappear. Then trying to find out which Turtle was in the turtle shop they had one day the story moves at times into almost a ghost story as strange things happen around the young girl things she has trouble explain or understanding .The story is a fragmented story as thou from a child time is flipped in place and events run against each other in times. There is the mother but the father is the man in the dark is he there or has he gone or died.A book that shows how frightening growing up can be and we see things that maybe or ghost or just fragments of our imaginations as we try to make sense of this world.

The pebbles that I “collected” from the neighbours yard were small, white, and were used by them to decorate the window box adorning the front of their house.

Collecting them was an adventure because they were just beyond our reach and because they were “cultivated” pebbles, “pedigree” pebbles and not stones from the street, so nobody should see us when we got them.

I lived the image of stealing those pebbles we all did something similar as a kid didn’t we !

As I said this is what Mexican writing does so well the short punchy novella from Juan Rulfo with Pedro Paramo which also has a sense of otherness to it written before this novella and a work after by say Yuri Herrera’s signs preceding the end which has a ghostly feel to the text and came out after this book. I also saw a comparison with Guadalupe Nettel’s work  that also touches on times on growing up. There is a style to Boulosa writing that is gripping to the reader given the great translation from Peter Bush. The girl’s voice has a real feel of a young woman looking back and the way you miss as a child the mundane in life and also the way we look at others and events in those years.A tumbling collection of remembered thoughts. Have you read any of her books?

Ash Wednesday by Miguel-Anxo Murado

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ASH WEDNESDAY

 

Ash Wednesday by Miguel-Anxo Murado

Spanish (Galician) fiction

Original title – Mércores of cinza

Translator – Carey Evans-Corrales

Source – Review Copy

It wouldn’t be Spanish lit month without have at least one books translated from either Galician or Basque. So it is the second book by Miguel-Anxo Murado to be translated into English from the small press Small station. Murado is a writer, screenwriter and Journalist. He has written four books so far. He is also a commentator on Spanish politics for the BBC world service, Guardian and BBC four. His earlier books Soundcheck was based on his experiences during the Balkan conflict and is also published by the Small station press.

Dying blossoms, still white and pink,slowly letting go of the twisted boughs, wafted away by the gentlest of breezes, and children looking on. what are they thinking? the blossoms fall, time moves on.

This image interrupted the suffering of professor I… the image on an ordinary postcard, a simple photograph.He held it i n his hand and looked at it with some effort. It tired his eyes. Actually all of him was tired. He turned over; Ueno Park, tokyo, from his old friend of his, a colleague at Kyoto University, a marine biologist.

A man decides to see the blossom after looking aat tis card at the start of the story.

This is a collection of very short stories most less than ten pages all sixteen only take 136 pages. THe stories range around the world. From the last story which sees Professor visiting Kyoto to watch the annual Cherry Blossom. But this also reminds him that he himself has little time due to ilness. Then we have a ship that is sinking and the description of one sailor as he escapes the burning boat trying to escape and in the water watches his fellow crew members drift away as the currents catch them as a helicopter tries to save others. Then we are in Hong Kong with a visit to get a suit made over night at Wang’s.We see the Chinese ladies that work so hard to make a handmade suit over night. A classic story of two boys falling for a girl both in a gang they try to get her rather like the classic Babel tale of two men and a woman red Calvary.

Master Wang would greet his customers at the entrance bowing his way to the room he used as an office. In that tiny space, under the ceiling that seemed on the brink of caving in , was Wang’s inner sanctum

Wang Kept a collection of hundreds of buisness cards under glass on a table. Over the course of several years passing travelers and buisnessmen from all around the world would have some shorts or a jacket made at Wang’s or maybe some trousers.Most were people unable to spend  much more than twenty-four hours in the city. That is why the would go to Wang’s: Wang’s one-night-ready shop. He never failed on his promise to deliver the work the following day.

I remember Michael Palin getting a suit made on around the world in 80 day in Hing Kong in a day like in this story.

I read the first collection from Murado and loved it but it was a couple of years ago when I had a bad patch blogging so I never got round to it so I am pleased to have finally got to him. This is a universal collection of its themes. we see  Loss, inner strength, love, facing death, celebrating life although dying how we all deal with the extremes of life. This is a collection that shows how small the world is really from China to Japan, to London(a story of two Galician children attending a wake). This as I always say is why we have small press those collections that would never get published otherwise Murado has won many writing  prizes in Spain but not one of the big ones.

The secret of Evil by Roberto Bolano

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The secret of Evil by Roberto Bolano

Chilean fiction

Original title – El Secreto del Mal

Translators Natasha Wimmer and Chris Andrews

Source – Library book

Well, Spanish lit month wouldn’t be a spanish lit month over here at winstonsdad without a Bolano book on it. So far I have reviewed eight of his books on the blog. I still have to add 2666 and Savage detectives at some point. I read both pre blogging days. I may do them next year on the 15th anniversary of his death. Well like most great writers that die early there is bits left over especially nowadays with computers this is the bits and piece from Bolano’s hard drive some connected to earlier pieces and others essays and pieces on Lit.

Many years ago, before V.S. Naipaul – a writer whom I hold in high regard, by the way – won the Nobel prize, I tried to write a story about him , with the title ” Scholars of Sodom” The story begain in Beunos Aires, where Naipaul had gone to write the long article on Eva Peron that was later included in a book published in Spain by Seix barral in 1983 . In the story, Naipaul arrived in Beunos Aires , I think it was his second visit to the ciry and took a cab that is where I got stuck

The tale of this story in the sory scholars of Sodom

This is a collection of small stories a couple feature Belano the character from 266 as he returns a successful writer to Mexico he meets a band and then his son in 2005 in Berlin. Then a number of non-fiction pieces one on VS Naipaul a sort narrative about the story itself and his visit to Argentina after the Junta has fallen and meeting Borges. that links nicely to a story called Labyrinth about a group of friends reminded me of Borges in the style of its retelling. Then a character from Nazi Literature in the Americas Daniela, tells how she lost her virginity to a 25 to 45 ranch hand at the age of 13, she didn’t consider it rape (but may explain why she is in the Later book. Then a great piece about the Lit of Argentina from Martin Fierro through Borges, Bioy Ceasres, Soriano, Arlt, Piglia and even the later two connection with Gombrowicz in a piece entitled The vagaries of the literature of doom.

Belano , our dear Arturo Belano , returns to Mexico city. More than twenty years have passed since the last time he was there. The plane is flying over the city, and he wakes with a start. The uneasiness he has felt throughout the trip intensifies. At the airport in Mexico city he has to catch a connecting flight to Guadalajara, for the book fair, to which he’s been inviited Belano is now a fairly well-known author and is ofteninvited to international events’ although he doesn’t travel much. This is his first trip to mexico in more than twenty years .Last year he had two invitations and he had to pulled out at the last minute.

He has finally got back to mexico after missing a number of chances to return what will happen when he returns !

I am a huge Bolano fan but even I wonder if this was a good collection to put out. But that isn’t my decision and like all great artist, this isn’t the first collection to be put out. I think how much stuff came out after Jeff Buckley died another artist I am a huge fan of and like his piece the secret of evil shows the lesser piece some of these are maybe ideas for bigger pieces rather than short stories. It also shows how he didn’t like to let go of certain characters like Artur Belano which had appeared in his two main books, also in Amulet(still to review here I do have a copy at hand ) and in the collections The return and the last evening on earth. Belano is like Frank Bascombe or Rabbit an alter ego of the writer.

The hive by Camilo Jose Cela

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The hive

 

The Hive by Camilo Jose Cela

Spanish fiction

Original title –  La Colmena

Translator – J M Cohen in consultation with Arturo Bare

Source – Personal copy

A few years ago I reviewed another book by the Late Nobel-winning Spanish writer Camilo Jose Cela and had since then want to try him again so when I recently found this second-hand edition it struck me a perfect choice for Spanish lit month. When the book first came out due to a number of sexual or erotic scenes in the book it was banned in Spain due to the strict censors at the time and first published in Argentina.

Dona Rosa comes and goes between the cafe tables, bumping into the custmers with her enormus backside. Dona Rosa her cafe is the world, and everything else revolves around the cafe. Some people claim that Dona Rosa’s little eyes begin to sparkle when spring comes and the girls go short sleeves. I think this is sheer gossip; for nothing in the world would Dona rosa ever sacrifice a solid five-peseta piece, spring or no spring.

 I loved the image of Dona Rosa the heart of the cafe in he story .

The hive is the best description for this story it is like cutting into a beehive, except the beehive is the city of Madrid it is December 1943 and this captures a few days in the city and  a small corner of the city is told from a small cafe in the city its owner  Dona Rosa is the cafe owner nd the story flies out from the guest and into the nearby Brothel and men looking for women like Don Pablo, dodgy businessmen and the jobless this is the city a few years after the Spanish civil war, the wounds simmer under the surface here . This is a book that buzzes as we meet the 300 plus character that appears in the seven chapters of the book some appear in a line others slid through the book mainly Dona Rosa her cafe it the beating heart of this book a place for gossip, meeting, romance or even just to waste time.

The young man who is writing verse licks his pencil and stares at the ceiling.He is one of those poets who writes poems with “Ideas”. This afternoon he has his idea but not yet his rhymes. He has got a few down on paper. What he is looking form is something to rhyme with streem, which must neither seemnor team. He is turining and redeem and gleam round in his mind.

“I’m shut up in a stupid armour, in the shell of a common clod. The girl with the deep blue eyes.. But I want to be strong,more than strong

A poet crops up and I wonder if he is the young Cela putting himself in the story.

Sometimes a city is captured at the perfect moment in a book. Dublin by Joyce in Ulysses, Havana by Infante’s three trapped tigers, Istanbul by Pamuk. This seems to capture a post-war world of Madrid a city getting used to life under Franco. But also the darker side of life in a city the brothels, affairs and fighting. This is a book full of clever observation of human life and human nature the humdrum world in full technicolour as we shine a light over the dark streets. Unlike Joyce and the others there is no main figure in the book no this is a collection of voices situations most just like you’ve walked past them a mere snippet leaving you at times to fill in the gaps of the  stories or what happened next this could have lead to a lot of follow-on stories about the characters here. Note not my cover mine is a sceptre edition, but I liked this old ace cover

Nona’s room by Cristina Fernandez Cubas

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Nona's Room

Nona’s room by Cristina Fernandez Cubas

Spanish fiction

Original title – de La Habitación de Nona

Translators – Kathryn Phillips-Miles and Simon Deefholts

Source – review copy

My first book for Spanish lit month is the first of the three from the second |Peter Owen World series were they are every year publishing three books from a certain country the first in the series was Slovenia this second series is three books from Spain. The first book is from Cristina Fernandez Cubas she has bee writing since the 1980’s this is her first book to be translated into English, she has written ten books, including one using a male pseudonym, this collection won National Narrative and critics prize when it came out.

My sister is special. That’s what my mother told me at the time she was born in the bright and sunny room in that hospital.She also said, “Special is a lovely word.Never forget that “. I’ve never forgetten, oif course , but it’s more than likely that the scene I’ve described didn’t happen in the hospital but much later in some room and that Nona wasn’t a newborn or even a baby but rather aa little girl of three or four years old .

Nona isn’t what we think this is the start but as the story unflds it takes more turns.

Cubas is well known for putting her female characters in very unsettling situations or out of their comfort zone. The first story is told by an older sister about her young sister Nona of the title of the book. As the story unfolds as told by a child you sense something is very wrong with her younger sister almost unnatural in a way. The next story follows a young woman who is about to meet a friend in a cafe feels sorry for an older woman Ro as she finds out that is sat by herself in the cafe looking lost and lonely.The young woman called Alicia is in need of a place to stay and this older woman offer hers a place in her flat, encourages her to see the flat before her friend arrives. She does but does she return and is all as it seems is this older lady whom she seems. Then a story revolving around a picture that is a girl looking for something under a bed another strange figure leads a writer to she the picture in person. There are three other stories.

Alica thought Ro was charming , a charming old lady.

“I’m on the fifth floor.”

Alicia imagined the fifth floor was like. There would be an enormus flat full of keepsakes. It would be a flat typical of the Ensanche district. There would be the dining room and a glazed veranda at one end and the master bedroom at the other .There would be a long corridor, which Ro would struggle up and down a thousand times a day. Ro, she said to herfself .Now she thought about it , her last chance was actually RO

Ok I’ll come in for a bit, just for a bit

Alicia goes to see a flat but is that All ?

This is a collection of  slightly creepy stories , I was reminded of Roald Dahl  short stories, at times she is almost a female version of his tales of unexpected where everything isn’t what it seems on the surface the perfect example is the second story talking to old ladies that until the last third seems a simple story of an older lady offering a younger a place to stay but no there is a classic twist in the tail, which is what Dahl did so well in his tales of the unexpected stories .I’m surprised it has taken so long for her to be translated into English

Spanish Lit month 2017

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Grant ask Richard and I if we were going to do another Spanish lit month and we said yes rather late the next two months will give everyone chance to take a few Spanish language translations off their TBR piles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are my choice first a book I have read but isn’t due out yet This Mexican novel follows Lucina a young Mexican writer, like most of her fellow writers she has come to New York. But a genetic condition means her eyes haemorrhage return home her life takes a turn.

 

 

Next up is the three Spanish novels from Peter Owen as part of the world series Nona’s room is a collection of short stories, with a female perspective.Inventing love follows a man that receives a call when a lover has died, but he didn’t know the lover but decides to see where going to her home and funeral leads him. Wold moon follows four Republican rebels on the run during the civil war in the land they grew up in trying to stay alive.

 

Then I have these three books, Camilo Jose Cela, I have read before, the hive is his most famous books and is a snapshot of the end of the civil war told through three hundred voices. Rafael Dieste tales and inventions of Felix Muriel is a collection of quirky short stories about Felix growing up and those around him. Then it is amung strange victims by another talented Mexican writer Daniel Saldana Paris a novel set i the Mexican Capital. I have a few other books on my TBR pile to add to the five I have to read here.

 

 

 

 

 

So what books are you choosing for Spanish Lit month ?

An episode in the life of a landscape painter by Cesar Aira

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An episode in the life of a landscape painter by Cesar Aira

Argentinean fiction

Original title – Un episodio en la vida del pintor viajero

Translator – Chris Andrews

Source – personnel copy

I can’t believe I hadn’t till now cover Cesar Aira on the blog ,I have a few of his books and Thought I had reviewed one before now well  as I just missed the end of Spanish lit month being off work on holiday I need to catch up so here we are Cesar Aira Has lived in Buenos Aires since 1967, he is a prolific writer his books tend to be short but he has been writing them at the rate of two to three a year for a number of years a number of his works have been translated into english. This was first published by New directions but later in a three vol version from Penguin mine i the new direction edition.

Rugendas was a genre painter. His genre was the physiognomy of nature, based on a procedure invented by Humboldt. The great naturalist was the father of a discipline that virtually died with him: Erdtheroie or la physique du monde, a kind of artistic geography, an aesthetic understanding of the world, a science of landscape. Alexander Von Humboldt (1769-1859) was an all-embracing scholar, perhaps the last of his kind:his aim was to apprehend the world in its totality

Humboldt was the last of the gentlemen scholars of the great age of discovery and in the eyes of someone like Rugendas a hero .

This is the tale of two real life characters that did meet in real life . But this is an episode that never happened except in Cesar Aira mind. The two characters are Johann Moritz Rugendas , he was one of the best landscape painters of his time known for his work on expeditions. He has been told by the famous explorer Alexander Von Humboldt  to go back to Latin american and record the nature and Landscapes around Chile and Argentina .This is a man driven by his own history his grandfather also a renowned painter of battle scenes . He is driven to record nature at its worst in his painting this is what leads to an event that leaves him scarred after a lightning strike in the Pampas whilst he is painting a scene  and struggling to recover he is a changed man.

They hurried on and , as they approached, saw him move yet remain face down, as if kissing the earth; the flicker of hope this aroused was quenched when they realized tat he was not moving himself, but being dragged by the horse’s blithe little browsing steps. They dismounted, took his foot from the stirrup and turned him over.. The horror struck them dumb. Rugendas’s face was a swollen, bloody mass; the bone of his forehead was exposed and strips of skin hung over his eyes.The distinctive aquiline form of his Augsburg nose was unrecognizable, and his lips, split and spread apart, revealed his teeth, all miraculously intact .

After the lightening strike he is never the same man as before

The book harks back to an age of adventure and a time when painters could be at the forefront of the new world that were being uncovered and in Rugendas Aira has chosen a painter that was considered the best documentary painter.He also had a life worthy of a novel on his return to Latin America after his meeting with Von Humboldt to do a full work on latin america which is where this novel is set , but he also later got involved in a coup in Mexico . This is a gem of a book at 87 pages long it is a perfect summer evening .

Have you a favourite book about Artists ?

The winterlings by Cristina Sanchez- Andrade

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The Winterlings by Cristina Sanchez-Andrade

Spanish fiction

Original title – Las Inviernas

Translator – Samuel Ritter

Source – review copy

I was grabbed by this when it had a quote on the back cover by Manuel Rivas calling her writing Original and Unusual was a plus point for me having enjoyed his books, I knew this would be one for me. Cristina Sanchez-Andrade has a degree in law and mass media, she has written for numerous papers in Spain and has published seven novels.In 2013 she was shortlisted for the Herralde prize one of the top prizes in Spain. She has also written a novel about Coco Channel.

Don Manuel , the priest in Tierra de Cha, used to sit between the two winterlings, who were only little girls back then. He was short and fat, an absolute glutton. He was always somewhere between dinner and Mass. As soon as he finished the sermon, he’d be out and into the street. With great strides, pulling up his cassock to keep the manure off it, he would cross the square to eat his lunch. While the maid was tying a napkin around his neck and serving him, he positively burbled with pleasure.His mouth watered  at the sight of what lay before him : a hearty broth

I loved the imagery this passage evoked in me

The book follows the return of two sisters to a small village in Galicia Tierra De Cha, the two sisters have return after many years away. They have come back to their grandfather’s house. They have grown since they left but the place it self is just the same as the place they fled many years earlier. In a dark past that the village has hidden Delores and Saladina have their own secrets as well they are on course for disaster when a glimpse of light happens the sisters love the glamour of the film world and hear that the American actress Ava Gardener is to come to their part of Spain to make a film and they need some stand ins the sisters feel they could fill this roles. What will happen will they get the part or will everyone have to face their own pasts at last ?They are also drawn to the sea , why !

Throughout the following days, Dolores heard it while she went about her daily chores – immense and powerful and even nearer, turning her actual world into a narrow and boring place – an ocean pulling at her , calling her :”Did you hear that Ava Gardner is coming to Spain ?

To Spain ?

Ava Gardner coming to Spaaaaain ?

Sometimes , the sea was like a cornfield, with waves that ebbed and flowed. Dolores was in the middle of it, it smelt of salt, and that smell impregnated her clothes and hair .

The sea is a large draw to the sisters

I loved this it remind me what I love about fiction set in small villages where everyone knows everyone no matter how far you go from the village they will always remember your past when you return . What Cristina Snachez does so well here is build up the feeling of the dark past the sisters where part of . Also the feel of returning to a village the way they are still part of the place but looked at as thou they aren’t they’ve grown out of the place the sister have had their eyes open to the world by the world they have seen and the films they have watch , hence their wanting to be part of the Ava Gardener production. This also has the feel of an oral tradition of storytelling that Galicia is well-known for. This book is also a perfect choice for the forthcoming Woman in translation month .

what is your favourite Village based novel ?

The Body Where I was Born by Guadalupe Nettel

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The Body Where I was Born

The Body where I was born by Guadalupe Nettel

Mexican fiction

Original title – El cuerpo en que nací

Translator – J T LIchenstein

Source – review copy

Guadalupe Nettel is another of those wonderful young Mexican writers that has appeared over recent years.She is also another from the selection of Bogota 39 writers the Hay festival did in 2007 . She studied Spanish literature at university , particually the works of Octavio Paz. She has written three novels , this is her first to be translated to English ,, this is her second novel her third novel After the winter won the leading  spanish lit prize , The Herralde Prize.

While the two parental hemispheres never gave me and my brother any navigational problems, the ninetennth-century grandmother universe was the least hospitable territory we’d known. This universe was governed, at least in my opinon, by completely arbitrary laws that took months to assimate. Many of them were based on the supposed inferiotry of women. The way my grandmother saw it, a little girl’s first and foremost even before going to school – was to help clean the home.

After freedom in Mexico , her mother breaks down and has to go back to her mothers

The book is told as a dialogue on a life growing up. A woman born with a white mark over her right eye. Her parents are determined to at some point try to find a way to give her the full sight she should have. What follows is a story of a childhood , her parents split up as this is the seventies and the marriage splits as they had an Open marriage. This leads to her travelling the world with her lone  parent to the other as she grows both in her body but also in her mind as she dives into a world of books and discovers literature , but also freedom and the lack of freedom as she moves from the Commune world of Mexico where she is given the freedom to study. To the older world of her mother in France. She was called a cockroach when she was born the way she was curled up when walking  . Strange how they crop up in literature a roach is a feature in the novel The passion according to GH where it is crushed by the woman in that story , but in this Nettel the female narrator of this book connects with Kafka character that turns into a roach.We she her grow up almost a female bildungsroman

In the dream, I entered the operating room but stayed awake for a long time. I watched the doctor cut into my eye, very slowly with a razor like the one in the film UnChein Andalou . Once my eye was gaping open, the doctor removed from it a very small object. It was a red seed no bigger than two centimeters long, like a bean seed.

The day before her Operation Nettel has a dream . I would have the same dream myself .

There is a scene near the end when they find some one to do the operation on her eye and she imagine the scene in the famous film Un chein andalou by Luis Brunel and Dali a chilling way to look at the operation. It turns out the book has certain autobiographical themes the name Cockroach was given to her by her mother as a two-year old as well. She also live in her teens in Aix En Provence a city as she shows in the book has two sides to it. This is a story of a broken childhood that is so much the normal now with families split told from the point of view of those divide by it. Nettel shows how it is to grow up , with your parents not their. The cover maybe shows the blurred vision of the character but also the chaos of her growing up.

Have you read any books Nettel ?

Affections by Rodrigo Hasbun

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Affections by Rodrigo Hasbun

Bolivian Fiction

Original title –  Los Afectos

Translator – Sophie Hughes

Source – Review copy

Another review for this years Spanish lit month and for the blog a new country a rare occurrence these days. Rodrigo Hasbun has published two novels and was one of the writers chosen a few years ago for the Hay festival Bogotá 39 collection of Latin american writers he was also on the list of the Granta best Spanish writers under 35 in 2010. Two of his stories have already been made into films .Affections is his second novel and the first to be in English.

Papa and my sisters had been in the jungle for months so mama and I spent that christmas on our own. It was the best one of my life.

I shouldn’t say this, it was our little secret, but I will anyway: while we prepared dinner, I smoked for the first time.

it was Mama who offered it to me.

“Want a drag?” she asked out of nowhere.

I smiled it was unbeleivable.

I was almost thirteen. Twelve and ten months to be precise

Trixi with her mother who starts her smoking at 13

Heidi , Monika and Trixi are three sisters, their father is Hans Ertl one of those mad german Explorer that was also a talented cameraman who had worked with Leni Riefenstahl on her early Nazi films as he had pioneered  a number of unusual camera styles and thus when the war end he took his family in 1950’s to Bolivia as he search adventure again, taking his daughters to the heart of the country and the poverty that it was suffering at the time what effect it has on his daughters seeing this horrors. Well one escapes to the city and is drawn into the way it can make her invisible from herself and her family. The other Monika is drawn to fight alongside the poor of the country and in her own right is well-known as a terrorist and freedom fighter . The other turns her back and returns to Europe to a domestic life. The story unfoldss in little bites of storries each interconnecting and passing the story of the sisters and their father.

But it’s no exaggeration to say that ultimately it was Monika who I thought about more than anyone. I was twenty six, and then twenty eight and twenty-nine , and sex was my way of holding on to my youth. In the moment these women I would start to feel safe again, but a few hour later I’d invariably ask them to leave. How it was possible that someone who never belonged to me kept returning I don’t know, but monika was always present, watching me screw those other women.

A strange dynamic that remind me of the images of olympia the young people exercising almost had a sexual feel to them,

I enjoyed this it remind me in a way of  Che Guevara book the motorcycle dares where he like Monika also saw the poverty and dark side of Latin america and like Monkia took up arms. she also took over from Che in Bolivia after he moved on . Elsewhere I saw echos to their fathers past where one sister is drawn to younger men the old she gets to keep her young it was like the scenes in the film her father made Olympia with loads of virile young men.The family slowly grows apart in the heat of the Latin america, LIke the Klinkl characters in the Herzog movies the father is drawn to the adventure of the land. Whilst it is also a drama of a family falling into pieces and driving in the wind like shatter shards.

Have you ever read a book from Bolivia ?

One million cows by Manuel Rivas

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ONE MILLION COWS

One million cows by Manuel Rivas

Spanish Galican fiction

Original title -un millon de vacas

Translator – Jonathan Dunne

Source – review copy

I received the first for books from a small publisher Small station press , the press was set up by the translator of this book. There aim was to bring the best of Galican fiction to English for the first time . I reviewed Polaroid by the same press as well last year. I saved this for this spanish lit month as it is by one of my all time favourite Spanish writers |Manuel Rivas I have reviewed two of his novels all is silence and the carpenters pencil both of which were translator by Jonathan. This is a collection of short stories from early in the career of this writer.

“Did you see that guy ?” asked Rita. “He smells bad.”.In this day and age , still wearing a corduroy jacket,” remarked pachi. “He’s covered in dandruff,” observed Virxinia. Raul had a doubt “Does he not talk, or is he dumb?””That Girl complained Marije , no longer knows what to do to surprise us. First , she hooks up with an Arab and now she brings along a country bumpkin. Do you think she’s taken him to bed yet ?

A stranger appears with dandruff on his jacket or is it fish scales ?

One million cows is a selection of 18 stories with setting in modern-day Galica in the 1980’s . A time when spain had just shaken of the shackles of the Franco years. The stories range from a schoolgirl recounting her last day at school her favourite art teacher. A man returns from England in another. Then there is how we get the title when it is reported on a news piece that there is a million cows living in farms in Galicia. My favourite piece was a comic story of a man given the job of answering the phones at an army base , when he receives a call  from a woman asking for Jose to be let off on leave to come and sort out the cotton fields, but she won’t say which Jose and there is a lot of them do we ever find out which Jose she wants ? Elsewhere a stranger appears in a town covered in fishscales.

Having been assigned to the telephone exchange , i was one of the others, needless to say on that filthy afternoon, from behind the window of the exchange I thanked my lucky stars that I was only half a man . Until a bell rang , a noisy buzzer that warned of an incoming call.

“INfantry barracks, how can I help you ?”

Is Jose There ?”, asked the distant voice of a woman .

“Jose , what Jose ?”

“Jose is that you ? Can you put Jose on the line ?”

“What Jose , madam ? there are lots of Joses here ”

“I wanted Jose to be given leave, it’s for the cotton, you know. For harvesting the cotton

I like this short tale of a call to an Army Barracks .

I always wonder what the less known works of writers are, you often look at a writers Wiki page or interviews with them translated and see books or as in this case short stories that haven’t been translated this is where the small press come in and the ability to fill in the gaps in the cannon of great writers. I am a fan of Rivas he has a real eye of detail in his writing and that is shown here but also i liked the fact he had humour in a few of the stories which is something I discovered about his writing. I also like that fact in this collection of post Franco tales there was no mention of the fact it was post Franco era.

Do you like to reader lesser known works of writers in translation ?

The sky over Lima by Juan Gómez Bárcena

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The sky over Lima by Juan Gómez Bárcena

Spanish fiction

Original title – Cielo de Lima

Translator Andrea Rosenberg

Source – review copy

Well I kick of this Spanish lit month with a new name to most English readers Juan Gomez Barcena. This was his debut novel it won the Ojo critico prize and was shortlisted for another major prize in Spain. He studied comparative literature , philosophy and History. He was also on a list of the best Spanish writer under thirty in Spain.

At first it’s just a letter drafted many times: dearest friend, respected poet, most esteemed sir, a different opening for every sheet or paper that ends up in a crumpled ball under the desk, glory of Spanish literature, most distinguished Ramon Jimenez, peerless bard, comrade. The next day the mulatta servant will sweep up the wads of paper scattered across the floor, thinking they’re the poems of the young master of the house, carlos rodriguez.

The opening as they try as themselves to write to Jimenez before making up Georgina to write to him .

This is one of those books that tells a real event in a novel form. The event surrounds the writing of letters to the Spanish poet Juan Ramon Jimenez from two fellow poets in Peru well in Lima. The two poets Jose and Carlos decide on a plan to get the latest work from Jimenez which has yet to reach the book shops of lima they write to him as a Peruvian lady called Georgina. what follows in the book is a series of letter between the two (well three in reality) as Jimenez falls for Gerogina and the world that is described Peru in 1904 a town changing through the eyes of a young woman makes Jimenez fall for the place and woman. A tale of love across the sea that inspired the poet to write some love poems about this woman.We see the two poets abandon their own poems to grab on to the coat tails of Jimenez and his poems.

So he has to write about love. But what does he know about that?It could be that Carlos is more apprehensive about this than he initially seemed and we must attribute to him a second fear: the terror that the story of Juan Ramon and Georgina will ultimately reveal nothing more than how little his own life is worth.becasue all good fiction is rooted in genuine emotion, as the professor put it, which means that to write about love a novelist must look to his experiences, make use of everything he’s learned in a woman’s arms.

Carlos wonders what the letters will be made of when it turns to love letters .

An interesting and strange work to open this spanish lit month. It takes a corner of history and opens it up back to a time when a written word meant more letters were the way to keep in contact and people could fall in love over the written word . This is one for the fans of Bolano or Vila-Matas poets in a wild town of lima in the day remind me of Bolano world of poets in Mexico and the fact this was a true story some what Jimenez had exchange letters with a woman from Peru.Brought back memories of the way Vila-Matas uses places and the writers associated with them to place his stories in context.A fun debut novel that shows the power of the written word over men and the power books can have over other men as that is how the story started. A wonderful opening gambit for this Spanish lit month.

What have you planned for Spanish lit month ?

 

New year new order

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I sorted the four shelves I use next to my sofa today these are always changing and a new year always sees a clear out of books that were ever failed projects or I just didn’t fancy in the end or those lucky ones I have read. I like reorder and  see what is there and maybe make small plans for the coming year. Too the fore is a number of Gabriel Garcia Marquez books 9 in all some of which I have reviewed here already but it would be nice to fill the others gaps in his books on the blog. I have a similar pile of Murakami books on an upstairs shelf with similar idea in mind. I want start filling in the gaps in writers I love a lot of which I read pre blogging days.
Have you writers you want to have more of on your own blog ?

The Adventures of the busts of Eva Peron by Carlos Gamerro

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The adventures of the busts of Eva Peron by Carlos Gamerro

Argentinean fiction

Original title – La aventura de los bustos de Eva

Translator Ian Barnett

Source – Review copy

Please, holy Eva, will you feed a hungry child?
For I love you–tell Heaven I’m doing my best
I’m praying for you, even though you’re already blessed
Please, mother Eva, will you feed a hungry child?
For I love you–tell Heaven I’m doing my best
I’m praying for you, even though you’re already blessed

CHE
Turn a blind eye, Evita,
Turn a blind eye

I have watched Evita the film once and a book about Eva Peron in a small way maybe need lyrics about her .

Another trip to latin America for spanish lit month ,this time to Argentina . I revisit a writer that I have reviewed twice before on the blog Carlos Gamerro his books Open Secret and The islands  . Like his earlier books this looks again at the past of Argentina and like the other stories it takes a different angle . Carlos Gamerro has written a number of books , he has also translated a number of works into English by writers such as Shakespeare , Auden and Harold Bloom .This is his third book to be translated to English .

Yon know the latest thing they’ve come up with ? They want us to put a bust of Eva Peron in each of our offices .Even in this one !Can you think of anything more absurd ?

Marrone didn’t answer , as he was already mentally totting up the number of busts needed to meet the new demand .eighth floor : the “Vahalla” , the meeting room and two other offices ; seventh floor : nine offices , hallway … The hallways too

The task ma be absurd but Ernesto is up for the task .Like Don Quixote with his absurd tasks .

The book is set in the 1970 the time of the dirty war in Argentina a subject I have touch on before with other books from Argentina I have reviewed on the blog a book like A funny dirty war for example . This as ever being Carlos Gamerro has an angle to it a business magnet has been kidnapped and the people who have kidnapped him have set a task of getting a bust of Eva Peron put in every office of Fausto Tamerlan construction company . Now the man tasked with obtaining the bust is one of Tamerlan underlings Ernesto  Marrone ,here is a man who reads the books on success , books about Don Quixote .In fact to him this is maybe the mission of a knight errand to save the man by getting the maid .This journey takes him through the past to the present from top to bottom of Argentinean society how does a man who is maybe caught in the rat race given the chance to escape and become a hero cope .He has the books but is that all he will need ?

In this very spirit  Cervantes celebrated hero , Don Quixote of La Manche , decides one fine day to turn his back on the meagreness of his material life and the shallowness of the world around him – gutless mediocre folk devoted to traditional ways of doing things , for whom creativity is anathema – and strikes out on the highways in search of adventure .Don Quixote’s gesture encapsulates the adventurous spirit of today’s businessmen

One of the business books that Ernesto likes to read happens to be about Don Quixote using his deeds in the modern business world .

 

There is many echos to me to the great Cervantes and his classic book Don Quixote  in this book, Ernesto like the Don Quixote  likes to read books now given his books aren’t about knight .But the knights of the modern age those business men . We see what in a way would be a good reality show to prove yourself to your boss with the impossible task .Add to that a splatter of history about the time and about the woman herself Eva Peron , her story gets wound up in the story .So  Ernesto is tasked with his modern crusade of getting the busts in place .To the backdrop of the mad seventies in Argentina .

Have you a favourite books about Argentina’s past .