Published in 2021 (first published 2000)
112 pages
Considered to be one of the authors forming part of the ‘new Latin American Boom’ of women writers, Fernanda Trías (Uruguay, 1976) is without doubt one of the most prominent literary voices in today’s River Plate region and in all of Latin America. Her books have been published in Spain as well as in Colombia, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Mexico, and France.
Annie McDermott is the translator of a dozen books from Spanish and Portuguese, by such writers as Mario Levrero, Ariana Harwicz, Brenda Lozano, Fernanda Trías and Lídia Jorge. She was awarded the Premio Valle-Inclán for her translation of Wars of the Interior by Joseph Zárate, and her translation of Brickmakers by Selva Almada was shortlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation. She has previously lived in Mexico City and São Paulo, Brazil, and is now based in Hastings, in the UK.
What is this book about?
In a rundown apartment building, in an unnamed city in Uruguay, a father and daughter close themselves off from the world.
“The world is this house,” says Clara, and the rooftop becomes their last recess of freedom. A pet canary is their only witness.
As Clara’s connection to the outside is stripped away―the neighbor who stops coming by, the lover whose existence is only known by a pregnancy―desperation and paranoia take hold. It’s a stifling embrace, and we are there with her, our narrator, dreading what we know the future holds.
