Júlio Cortázar: El Perseguidor (The Pursuer)

El Perseguidor (The Pursuer) is one of Cortázar's greatest literary achievements, and a classic in the XX Century literature. With an existential background masterly build, the story describes the last days of a saxophone virtuoso, Johnny Carter, whose life runs between lucidity and self-destruction. El perseguidor gives us a vivid image of the bebop scene in 1950s Paris, as we get a glimpse of Johnny's personal life, from his severe drug addiction and psychological instability to his profound philosophical insights.
Since it was first published in 1959, this tribute to the genius of Charlie Parker, has seen along the years the enthusiasm of many readers, who consider it, as Hopscotch, an initiatory experience.

The Pursuer is included in End of the Game and Other Stories.

Related links: Júlio Cortázar reads an extract from his short story El Perseguidor

Premio de Narrativa Caja de Madrid 2010

Mexican writer Federico Guzmán Rubio, living in Madrid, just won the 2010 Premio de Narrativa Caja de Madrid with his novel Los Andantes. The winning novel will be published by Editorial Lengua de Trapo. The jury was composed by Gustavo Martín Garzo, Lola Beccaria and Felix Romeo. The award ceremony will take place on April 28 at La Casa Encendida in Madrid.

New Directions Pearl Series

New Directions launched its collection "New Directions Pearls" with works of César Aira, Federico García Lorca (In Search of Duende) and Javier Marias (Bad Nature, or With Elvis in Mexico).
Of the latter publishes the English translation of the short story "Mala índole" that first appeared in 1999 in Granta.

Gabriel García Márquez: Chronicle of a Death Foretold

Maybe Chronicle of a Death Foretold is the most ‘realistic’ work by Gabriel García Márquez, after all it’s based on a historical event that happened in hist the hometown.

When the novel begins, we know that the Vicario brothers are going to kill Santiago Nasar - in fact had already killed him, to avenge the outraged honor of their sister Angela, but the story ends precisely at the time of Santiago Nasar’s death.

Cyclical time, as used by García Márquez in his works, reappears here thoroughly decomposed in each moment, neatly and accurately reconstructed by the narrator, who starts by telling what happened long ago, then moves back and forth in his story and returns a long after the events to tell the fate of the survivors.

The action is at once collective and personal, clear and ambiguous, and grips you from the start, even knowing the outcome of the plot.

Related:
Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia)

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Roberto Bolaño: Monsieur Pain

Monica Szurmuk reviews Roberto Bolaño's Monsieur Pain.

The late Roberto Bolaño’s slim but hypnotic “Monsieur Pain” is an antithriller, a work that proffers the nervy tension of the suspense genre but not its neat resolution. Against the background of the Civil War in Spain, the rise of Nazism, and the imminent breakout of World War II, Bolaño constructs a masterfully elegant narrative with deft touches of irony, dramatic tautness, and even a slightly painful humor, a trademark of his literary project.

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Roberto Bolaño: Monsieur Pain(1)
Roberto Bolaño: Monsieur Pain(2)
Roberto Bolaño: Monsieur Pain(3)

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Tomás Eloy Martínez: La novela de Perón (The Peron Novel)

John J. Junieles reviews Tomás Eloy Martínez' La novela de Perón (The Peron Novel).

La novela de Perón logra acercar al lector a ver de manera real y crítica la vida de un hombre que representó tanto para Argentina. El texto le propone al lector de una manera clara un juego en el cual él es también el protagonista de la misma, en cuanto es parte de la historia y resulta casi imposible excluirse de ese “ser parte”.

La verosimilitud es parte crucial de la narración, ya que a pesar de la gran cantidad de memorias y testimonios a los que se recurre, ningunojavascript:void(0) anula a otro a pesar de que se confronten. La narración es impecable y la división por capítulos (20 y un epílogo) le da entrada a diversas maneras de ver a la historia.

Tomás Eloy Martínez convierte un hecho que podría únicamente terminar siendo una mitificación eterna, en una realidad que desmitifica a un hombre que ha sido visto como un baluarte, y quizá eso es lo más importante del texto, ya que posiblemente le ha quitado de los hombros a la Argentina, y hasta al mismo Perón, un peso que ahora la deja caminar más tranquila, dejando el pasado atrás y mirando hacia un futuro prometedor. Definitivamente, ya no volverían a ser los mismos.

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Roberto Bolaño: Monsieur Pain

Carolina De Robertis reviews Roberto Bolaño's Monsieur Pain.

What could be dangerous about a poet?

This question haunted Roberto Bolaño, the great Chilean novelist and poet who died in 2003 at age 50, leaving us a body of work that has rightfully earned him praise as the most dazzling, important and influential Latin American writer since the Boom generation.

In recent years, the torrent of English translations of his work - from the slim, devastating "Distant Star" to the soaring, unparalleled, 900-page masterpiece "2666" - has further catapulted his international literary stardom. Now, "Monsieur Pain," an early novella beautifully translated by Chris Andrews, joins Bolaño's other works in all its aching splendor.

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Roberto Bolaño: Monsieur Pain (1)
Roberto Bolaño: Monsieur Pain (2)


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Júlio Cortázar

Júlio Cortázar died 26 years ago on February 12, 1984.

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Jorge Volpi: El insomnio de Bolívar

Jorge Volpi presented his new novel "El insomnio de Bolívar" a reflexion on Latin America's last two centuries.

En El insomnio de Bolívar, Volpi acompaña al lector por la América Latina de los bicentenarios, en busca de respuestas para las preguntas fundamentales: qué ha llegado a ser y hacia dónde va el proyecto continental que un día soñó el referido libertador.
A partir de su experiencia personal como mexicano que descubre tardíamente su condición de latinoamericano, Volpi teje cuatro reflexiones en torno del último Bolívar, fracasado en su sueño de unidad.
En el primer rubro, el autor transita los cuatro puntos cardinales como testigo de huelgas, manifestaciones y homenajes, de donde surgen las múltiples facetas de la región, que le permiten meditar sobre el contenido y la vigencia del concepto mismo de América Latina.
En la segunda, aborda la historia política, desde las independencias hasta la dificultad de la democracia para consolidarse.
En la tercera se aproxima a la literatura reciente: los problemas de las divergentes expectativas del mercado editorial y de la crítica, así como las ambiciones de los escritores.
El cierre llega con un audaz ejercicio de futurología que anticipa, tras muchas tensiones y conflictos, la unificación del continente en las próximas décadas.
Sobre el texto, Salvador Beltrán del Río habló sobre las desigualdades que plantea Volpi en la obra, así como de los caudillos democráticos y su propensión al populismo.
Para el cubano, el libro desglosa el legado de la Revolución Mexicana y Cubana, el boom latinoamericano de la literatura y las estrategias poéticas y públicas de los grandes autores, como Gabriel García Márquez, Carlos Fuentes, Mario Vargas Llosa y Juan Carlos Onetti, entre otros.
Al respecto, Jorge Volpi mencionó que el sueño de Simón Bolívar resultó el sueño de una quimera.

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Manuel Mujica Lainez

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Tomás Eloy Martínez

Ana Laura Lissardy remembers Tomás Eloy Martínez.

Conocí a Tomás Eloy en otoño, en un bar de una pequeña ciudad de luces tenues y carteles en inglés. Miraba hacia afuera y sus manos se unían a través de una taza de café humeante apoyada entre ellas. Lo vi desde la calle, mientras caminaba sin rumbo, y dudé de ese azar benévolo o distraído que nos cruzó. Pero era él, no había dudas. Lo delataban su mirada triste, de párpados caídos, y esas dos arrugas –ya canaletas– verticales en el entrecejo.

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Manuel Mujica Lainez: Bomarzo

Great novel about the Italian Renaissance, on classical culture, but at the same time is a novel about the psychology of his characters, especially his protagonist, Pier Francesco Orsini, who with his excesses and virtues drags us over this period of Italian history, where power was abble to support everything from corruption to murder, where leaders will do anything to be on top. The Duke of Renaissance, masterfully portrayed by Manuel Mujica Lainez, in his novel Bomarzo, whose personality is dual, he is an art lover, and yet he remains cruel and hateful, but we fell often closer to him than to other characters in the novel and he attracts us as a magnet, he's marked by his physical defect and that will affect him for life.
The construction of a spectacular garden, full of monstrous figures shows the closed and dark personality of Duke Orsini, it was a visit to this wonderful garden, in the Viterbo region, about 60 km from Rome, which inspired Mujica Lainez this superb historical novel. A great book that and one of the best novels on the Italian Renaissance period.

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