u/perrolazarillo

John K. King Used and Rare Books in Detroit, MI, has to be one of the coolest bookstores on the planet!

Whenever I pass through Detroit, I try to make a stop at this four-story bookstore, as their selection of more than one million books (no joke), is matchless to say the least! Also, their prices are very reasonable (Terra Nostra cost me the most at $9.50 USD).

If you ever end up visiting John K. King Bookstore, make sure to give yourself ample time to explore the stacks, as the place is a true labyrinth! Don’t worry though, the staff will of course hook you up with a map.

Anyway, due to the fact that I had limited space available in my suitcase, I made myself be rather selective with my choices, so I only walked away with five Latin American titles in total. Nevertheless, you can swipe to the end to see some of the other books I picked up as well (including three first-editions by Denis Johnson, all of which only cost me $9.50 USD each as well).

Believe it or not, it's mostly a coincidence that the five LatAm books I walked away with are all vintage editions from The Noonday Press, which is a now-defunct imprint of Farrar, Straus and Giroux… OK, enough rambling—here's what I picked up from Latin America:

Terra Nostra by Carlos Fuentes (México)

The Green House by Mario Vargas Llosa (Perú)

Conversation in the Cathedral by Mario Vargas Llosa (Perú)

The Time of the Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa (Perú)

Explosion in a Cathedral by Alejo Carpentier (Cuba)

Although I am somewhat ashamed to admit it, I've actually never read a single book by Vargas Llosa nor Carpentier. Also, I DNF'd The Death of Artemio Cruz when I was in my early twenties, but after hearing a lot about Terra Nostra recently, my interest in Fuentes has no doubt been rekindled, so I may have to try out his stuff again sometime soon!

Have you read any of these books? If so, would you please be so kind as to tell me your thoughts in the comment section below? Thanks in advance!

By the way, I'm still celebrating WITMonth by trying to focus on primarily reading works written by Latin American women this August, but perhaps I'll dive into one of the LatAm classics pictured above in September... In that case, where should I begin?

PS — I'm super curious to know: Has anyone else here ever been to John K. King Bookstore? It's a gem for sure!

Have you read any of contemporary Colombian writer Evelio Rosero's work?

I just finished Way Far Away (2024; originally published in Spanish as En el lejero in 2003) the other day. This was my first-ever read from Rosero, and I am now quite keen to check out more of his stuff, as I enjoyed Way Far Away, even though I did find its message to be a bit murky in the end.

The title that I've heard mentioned most when Rosero's name comes up is The Armies (a.k.a. Los ejércitos), which was first brought to my attention several months back by u/ItsHeavyReality—shout-out! Also, kudos to u/abgreens for not letting me forget about Rosero by commenting about his work a couple times recently in our community's weekly threads.

I actually have The Armies here in my personal collection too, however, I opted to start with Way Far Away simply due to its brevity (the English translation is approximately 80 pages in total). To my knowledge, (most) all of Rosero's work that has been translated into English, is published by New Directions, which is one of my all-time favorite presses. For those curious, Way Far Away was translated by Anne McLean and Victor Meadowcroft and is marked NDP 1591, whereas The Armies was translated by McLean solo and is listed as NDP 1174.

So, to be clear, I'm going to keep my thoughts rather brief on Way Far Away, as I'm trying to work on being less verbose...

Way Far Away is an incredibly dark, heavy, and confounding novel(la) that had me absolutely entranced in its oppressive envisioning of Colombian society despite that the narrative ultimately left me scratching my head upon reading the final lines...

In any case, what I like best about this book is its surreal and somber imagery as well as Rosero's masterful employment of various menacing motifs, which in my view, impart the narrative with its uniquely mesmerizing quality.

To me, Way Far Away feels akin to a psychological horror film of sorts. The atmosphere that encapsulates the narrative—one chiefly comprised of omnipresent mist, a mountain abyss, millions of dead mice, creepy townsfolk, and overwhelming silence—is sure to delight fans of literary horror. Nonetheless, with that said, Way Far Away hit me quite different than did Samanta Schweblin's Fever Dream or Selva Almada's Not a River for instance...

Honestly, I'm not even entirely sure that I can put into words what exactly makes Rosero's brand of surrealist horror in Way Far Away so distinct, but to me it certainly seems indescribably idiosyncratic. Perhaps that difference merely has to do with Way Far Away being set in Colombia—as opposed to in Argentina as is the case with the aforementioned novels of Schweblin and Almada, which lends Rosero an entirely different palette of imagery with which to paint his prose.

For instance, the image of the Condor (a national symbol of Colombia and the respective countries that make up the Andean region more broadly) looms large in Way Far Away. Nevertheless, I believe there also exists some other ineffable aspect to Rosero's writing that renders it one of a kind—maybe it's his sharp and unending focus on setting, as the small, isolated town up in the mountains in which the narrative takes place often feels deathly alive, personified by clandestine villainous actors.

With this in mind, I posit that Way Far Away is a social critique of sorts that takes the form of a surrealist horror novel(la). Straight up, I won't pretend for one second that I understand all of the intricacies and nuances of Colombian society, however, I believe that in Way Far Away, Rosero indicts the types of individual decisions and selfish behaviors that perpetuate injustice across modern-day Colombia, and especially the choice to remain silent—often out of one's own convenience—in the face of great atrocities… or, at least that’s my take!

Again, to be honest: Way Far Away isn't a difficult read in the sense that its style and form make it challenging, but rather, it's tough in the sense that Rosero does not provide readers with clear answers whatsoever (kind of like a David Lynch film), instead leaving them to interpret the narrative on their own accord.

At the end of the day, I would indeed recommend Way Far Away, but with the caveat that you go into it open-minded and ready for the uncanny, because it sure as hell gets awfully weird!

Anyway, have you read Way Far Away, The Armies, or any of Rosero's other books? If so, would you please be so kind as to drop your thoughts in the comment section below?

As always, thanks for reading... Peace!

(FYI: I'm currently reading The Twilight Zone by Nona Fernández for WITMonth!)

Is there any news related to Latin American literature that you wish to share with the community?

Are you aware of any new book releases in the field of Latin American literature?

Is there a literary event that you’d like to promote?

Do you have any other pertinent information worth sharing here?

Thanks in advance!

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The main LatAmLit book release on my radar for the month of August once again comes from our friends at Charco Press: Bury Your Dead by Ana Paula Maia (translated by Padma Viswanathan).

Find Charco's description of the forthcoming Brazilian novel, which is scheduled to be released on August 25, below:

>"A roadkill crew in rural Brazil finds the wrong kind of body. Edgar Wilson has left behind his job as a stunner at the slaughterhouse. He now spends his days collecting the bodies of animals killed on the road, transporting them to a facility where they are ground down in a giant mill and turned into fertiliser. On an otherwise ordinary day, the insistent cries of vultures draw him deep into the brush, where he comes upon the body of a woman hanging from a tree, swaying gently in the stillness. He knows he is not meant to collect human remains – but nothing around him seems to fulfil the role it was meant to play. Neither the police nor the healthcare system has the tools to handle such a scene. With stark, economical prose, Ana Paula Maia constructs a world where the boundaries between animal and human, good and evil, shift and blur. Bury Your Dead confirms the fierce power of Maia’s literary vision, marking her out as one of the most original voices in contemporary Brazilian literature. As in Of Cattle and Men , where she crafted a luminous poetics through a slow, contemplative rhythm, and in On Earth As It Is Beneath , a dizzying thriller in which a prison director hunts down his own inmates, Maia once again sets out to recycle death in search of the sacred – even within the most putrefied remnants of human matter."

I have been highly anticipating the release of Bury Your Dead since it was first announced last summer (if memory serves) upon the publication of On Earth As It Is Beneath (also published by Charco and translated by Padma Viswanathan), as currently Maia is one of my absolute favorite writers!

If you have not read Maia's stuff before, I would strongly suggest starting with On Earth As It Is Beneath, which in my view reads like a historically accurate action flick in print!

If you enjoy On Earth As It Is Beneath, then you should check out Of Cattle and Men before Bury Your Dead is released at the end of this month, as both novels center on the primary recurring protagonist of Maia's fictional universe, Edgar Wilson.

Finally, if you feel like you need a little more Edgar Wilson in your life, or you find yourself curious to learn more about his backstory, then you also really ought to get your hands on a copy of Maia's Saga of Brutes, which is published by Dalkey Archive Press.

(FYI: On Earth As It Is Beneath, Of Cattle and Men, and Bury Your Dead are roughly 100 pages a piece, while Saga of Brutes is comprised of three short novellas, each of which is less than 100 pages respectively.)

Bury Your Dead — Charco Press

Anthony Jeselnik continues to impress with his literary tastes regardless of what one makes of his comedy!

Have you read Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin?

What are you reading for Women in Translation Month?

“This month Jeselnik Book Club is reading Samantha Schewblin's [sic] Little Eyes, translated by Megan McDowell. I don't want to give anything away. This book is crazy unsettling and all over the place. It is 241 pages and was longlisted for The Booker Prize in 2020. It's great. I love it. You WILL HAVE QUESTIONS and I'll do my best to guess at the answers. Email JeselnikBookClub@gmail.com by August 22nd and I'll answer them at the end of the month. Enjoy your reading.” — anthonyjeselnik.com

It's already August again, and you know what that means... it's Women in Translation Month!

So in order to celebrate WITMonth, here's a dozen books from my personal collection that I've been dancing around reading for a while now…

The Twilight Zone by Nona Fernández (Chile)

A Little Luck by Claudia Piñeiro (Argentina)

Cathedrals by Claudia Piñeiro (Argentina)

Restoration by Ave Barrera (México)

Liliana's Invincible Summer by Cristina Rivera Garza (México)

Água Viva by Clarice Lispector (Brasil)

The Passion According to G.H. by Clarice Lispector (Brasil)

Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector (Brasil)

We Are Green and Trembling by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara (Argentina)

The Remainder by Alia Trabucco Zerán (Chile)

The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli (México)

Letters from a Seducer by Hilda Hilst (Brasil)

If I'm being realistic, knowing what lies ahead for me at the end of this month (a big move and whatnot!), I'll likely only get a chance to read about three or four of the books pictured, but I guess we shall see...

Although all the books pictured are ones that I have been interested in for a minute now, I certainly wouldn't mind a little assistance deliberating, as I can be a rather indecisive fellow from time to time. In other words, help me make my final selections please!

Generally, I select which books I read based on my mood at the moment of needing to begin a new work, so my process is largely whim-based.

Lately, I have no doubt been opting for shorter reads as I've had a surprisingly busy summer, and therefore, have been doing a lot of my reading in chunks spread out across days and weeks.

Whenever I take on longer works (300-plus pages or so), it's important for me to have a good block of time reserved ahead dedicated primarily to reading, as it tends to really irk me when life forces me to put a book down for several days—or even worse, a week or more—when I'm in the middle of a gripping narrative, but finding said time is always easier said than done.

Anyway, if all goes to plan, I'm thinking I'll read Nona Fernández's The Twilight Zone first because it ought to pair well with all of the Alejandro Zambra I've read recently.

Although this book is not pictured, I've been putting in some work towards trying to get my hands on an advanced copy of Ana Paula Maia's forthcoming novel in English (due out from Charco Press on August 11), Bury Your Dead... fingers crossed! I will for real drop everything I have going on at any given moment to knock out Bury Your Dead in a single sitting, as I've been highly anticipating its publication for quite some time!

I've also heard a lot of positive reviews about Claudia Piñeiro's new English-language novel, Cathedrals, which is published by Charco as well. So, perhaps I'll commit to reading that one too, if not A Little Luck instead. In any case, I really ought to read an Argentinian work, as I have some upcoming travel planned there for the fall.

Aside from the books specifically mentioned above, I'm open-minded about reading any of the others pictured. Frankly, I feel like I have too many novels by Clarice Lispector sitting on my TBR list, so perhaps I should give her the time of day this August. Still, I've also been keen to read Liliana's Invincible Summer by Cristina Rivera Garza for a while now too, so it's honestly a tough call...

Has anyone here read any of these books? If so, would you please be so kind as to give me your honest thoughts? Thank you in advance...

Also, I believe I speak for everyone when I say, we're all curious to know: What works of "latamlit" are you reading for Women in Translation Month?

Peace!

Have you read Down the Rabbit Hole by Juan Pablo Villalobos?

This was my first read from Villalobos and I genuinely enjoyed it overall. At the end of the day, I found Down the Rabbit Hole to be an impressive, if not brief (70 pages in total), debut novel, and it has left me rather curious about what more Villalobos can do with the printed page.

I also have Villalobos' I'll Sell You a Dog here in my personal collection, though I haven't yet given it a go—have you?

The other Villalobos title that I'm especially interested in is The Past Pursues Us Like Detectives, Debt Collectors, Thieves, in large part, simply due to its incredibly awesome title, which almost feels like it was pulled from the tracklist of a Midwest-Emo album (that's a compliment!).

Down the Rabbit Hole is a heavily satirical novel that, via its short but sharp-witted, laugh-out-loud-funny narrative, disembowels the machismo at the crux of narcoculture in Mexico. Furthermore, Villalobos' satire offers a strong critique of the global capitalist society (i.e. our very own) which ultimately creates the type of economic demand necessitating the very existence of narcos and their culture of greed, violence, and machismo in the first place.

My favorite thing about Down the Rabbit Hole is the narrative voice, which Villalobos absolutely slays! The story is narrated from the perspective of a young boy who is surrounded by the extravagance and perils of narcoculture, ultimately imparting the novel with an overarching tone that achieves a singularly uncanny mix of childlike innocence and depravity.

For those interested, below is the synopsis found on the back cover of the Farrar, Straus and Giroux edition of Down the Rabbit Hole:

>"Tochtli lives in a palace. He loves hats, samurai, guillotines, and dictionaries, and what he wants more than anything right now is a new pet for his private zoo: a pygmy hippopotamus from Liberia. But Tochtli is a child whose father is a drug baron on the verge of taking over a powerful cartel, and Tochtli is growing up in a luxury hideout that he shares with hit men, prostitutes, dealers, servants, and the odd corrupt politician or two. Long-listed for The Guardian First Book Award, Down the Rabbit Hole, a masterful and darkly comic first novel, is the chronicle of a delirious journey to grant a child's wish."

If you end up reading this novel, it will likely serve you well to make use of the "Glossary" included in the book's back matter. Personally, I didn't find all of the entries to be entirely helpful (frankly, a few inclusions seemed rather obvious to me), but the first note included therein no doubt provides illuminating translations of the all the primary characters' Nahuatl-rooted names. For instance, by way of the glossary, I learned that the protagonist's name, Tochtli, means "rabbit," which thereby shines additional light on the novel's title.

Anyway, if you've read Down the Rabbit Hole or any of Villalobos' other works, would you care to share your thoughts in the comments?

In any case, peace!

PS — I've had this bookmark lying around at home for quite some time... Thematically, it seemed to me to be the best, and most serendipitous, option among many for keeping track of my place in the text of Down the Rabbit Hole... Using this bookmark also almost felt like a sick inside joke between Villalobos and I, one which I'd like to think he'd appreciate considering that his sense of humor might be even more twisted than mine!

Have you ever read Chilean writer Alejandro Zambra? At the very least, perhaps you’ve heard of his magnum opus Chilean Poet, no? If not, let me put Zambra on your radar.

Zambra often draws comparisons to his fellow countryman and literary predecessor, Roberto Bolaño (here's a paywall-free link to a 2022 article on Zambra from the LA Times that heavily references Bolaño), and while there are similarities in their aesthetics, in my opinion, overall their bodies of work are quite distinct from one another.

On the whole, I feel that Bolaño’s tone is much darker and more surreal, whereas Zambra’s prose has a real everyday levity to it and the concept of metafiction indisputably sits at its core. Nevertheless, Bolaño and Zambra alike are poets who ended up being fiction writers regardless of their original intentions. Accordingly, I do believe that something resembling that ineffable strain of surrealist poetics coursing throughout Bolaño’s oeuvre also rears its head, albeit with a different face, in Zambra’s fictional universe.

With all the above being said, however, I do want to stress that I think Zambra has really set himself apart from Bolaño with the development of his singular quotidian, metafictional style. Zambra’s unique brand of literature is no doubt most apparent in Chilean Poet; nonetheless, reading his three earlier novels—Bonsai, The Privates Lives of Trees, and Ways of Going Home—as well as My Documents provides a mesmerizing look into the evolution of Zambra’s literary aesthetic and its culmination in Chilean Poet.

My first experience with Zambra was back in 2018 or so when I read Mis documentos (in Spanish) after a friend of mine from grad school recommended it to me as a fan of Bolaño. I remember genuinely enjoying the collection, but because I was reading so many other books during those days due to the demands of my comp lit program, I sort of forgot about it…

Then, on something of a whim, I read the English-language version of My Documents—in part because it included additional stories not in the original Spanish version—during Spring Break 2024 on a beach in Mexico (I was working as a teacher at the time), and for whatever reason, it was exactly the book I needed in that moment, as it really moved me and inspired me to start reading for fun again (after completing my PhD in 2022, I took an unintended hiatus of sorts from reading with regularity).

Although I really liked My Documents on both occasions that I read it, I didn't feel much hurry to read anything else from Zambra… Candidly, something about Penguin Books' presentation of Zambra’s work kept turning me off—I still can’t decide if I like the whitish cover designs of his English-language paperbacks, but I can say for sure that Penguin's synopses do not even come close in the slightest to being able to capture the everyday magic found in Zambra’s poetic, emotional (meta)fiction. This is to say, the first time I read the book description of Chilean Poet, I kind of shrugged in disinterest and moved on...

In any case, I must have had some cash burning a hole in my pocket last July (2025) because I went out and impulse-bought Chilean Poet and decided to give it a whirl. Ultimately, I was pleasantly surprised in countless ways—maybe also a bit miffed at myself for ever having doubted Zambra’s craft in the first place, and Chilean Poet ended up becoming one of my favorite reads over the last couple of years (some of that definitely has to do with its extended intertextual conversation with Bolaño's The Savage Detectives)!

Anyway, this summer I’ve been feeling like I need more Zambra in my life, so I decided to check out his earlier novels (which in my mind, form a trilogy or triptych of sorts, albeit loosely and very unofficially, as this is just my hot take). I’ll tell you all here and now, I greatly enjoyed all three, perhaps Ways of Going Home especially so, but Bonsai and The Private Lives of Trees are both excellent in their own right too. Stick with me and below I’ll dive into each of these three a bit more…

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Bonsai —This is Zambra’s first “novel,” which in English sits just shy of 80 pages. Bonsai was originally published in Spanish in 2006, first translated into English by Carolina de Robertis in 2008, and then re-translated for publication with Penguin Books by Megan McDowell in 2022. In 2011, Netflix released a film adaptation, also titled Bonsai, which I have not yet seen (have you?).

In my view, Bonsai serves an early glimpse of the idiosyncratic literary aesthetic for which readers have come to recognize Zambra. It is a heavily fragmented, short novel broken into five parts that vary in length and form to a certain degree, though some symmetry is evident across the different parts that comprise the work. Within each part, Zambra fragments the narrative into myriad snippets that rarely last more than a page or two (an element of his fiction that, for me, is one of its defining features).

The protagonist at the center of Bonsai is Julio, however, I read Julio as a sort of fictional representation of Zambra himself, or at least, a fictional representation of certain aspects of Zambra himself, as in the narrative, Julio is a writer who ends up (tran)scribing a novel called "Bonsai"… Honestly, it’s kind of hard to put into my own words what Zambra actually achieves in Bonsai, so you’re just going to have to read it for yourself, but in any case, let’s just say it get’s meta AF! Still, I guess I will say that Bonsai is a love story of sorts, but certainly not a typical one, and I think the ending will surprise and devastate most at the same time.

The Privates Lives of Trees — This is Zambra’s second novel, though it is very much linked to his first. The Private Lives of Trees was initially published in Spanish in 2007, translated to English by Megan McDowell and released by Open Letter Books in 2010, before being rereleased in English by Penguin Books in 2023 (the Penguin edition nearly reaches 100 pages in total).

The Private Lives of Trees shares much in common with Bonsai, while also being completely distinct at the same time. There is an intertextual relationship between Zambra’s first two novels, yet they also stand entirely on their own. Still, in The Private Lives of Trees a book about a guy growing a bonsai also factors into the narrative. Unlike Bonsai, however, TPLOT is separated into only two parts, the second of which is less than ten pages and seemingly wraps up in the blink of an eye. Nevertheless, analogous to Bonsai, TPLOT makes use of the same type of narrative fragmentation, meaning that it gets chopped into pieces every (other) page or so.

Whereas the narrative of Bonsai is more focused on romantic relationships, TPLOT shifts its focus to instead deal with relationships between step-parents and step-children, a major theme to which Zambra returns in Chilean Poet (note: you don’t have to have a kid to dig Zambra; I don’t even have a houseplant and I still find his work extremely relatable). The protagonist of TPLOT is named Julián, however, readers learn that his name was supposed to be Julio before a clerical error of sorts occurred at the hospital the day he was born. In my opinion, this is Zambra not so slyly alluding to the fact that Julio (from Bonsai) and Julián (from TPLOT) are simply personifications of (parts of) himself. TPLOT is also very invested in metafiction, as at its crux, it is a story about telling a bedtime story. I will warn you that this novel ends without a clear resolution, but that’s kind of Zambra’s point, which he emphasizes through a continuous, ludic metafictional toying with readers: life rarely offers endings wrapped up with a nice, little bow!

Ways of Going Home —This is Zambra’s third novel, which was first published in Spanish in 2011, translated to English again by McDowell, and released by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in the US—and by Granta in the UK—in 2013. The used hardback edition I purchased rests at 139 pages in total, however, the line spacing and fragmentation also make it a rather quick read, albeit slightly longer than its predecessors. Ways of Going Home is divided into four parts that alternate back and forth between two differing levels of metafiction (confusing, I know, but beautifully so, just trust me).

To my mind, there is no doubt that Ways of Going Home is the most mature (but perhaps that was already obvious) and fully realized work of Zambra’s unofficial early trilogy. The way I see it, structurally Ways of Going Home is the culmination of Zambra’s experimentation with style and form in Bonsai and The Private Lives of Trees, as in WOGH readers observe the results of Zambra’s fine-tuning of his one-of-a-kind metafictional literary aesthetic.

For what it’s worth, I think Farrar, Straus and Giroux does a much better job of summarizing Zambra’s work in WOGH than does Penguin Books with any of their titles from Zambra; that is to say, I’d encourage you to read this particular book description in order to get a more concrete idea of what it’s truly like to read a Zambra novel. In this one, the unnamed protagonist (another stand-in, much like Arturo Belano in the case of Bolaño, for Zambra the real-life author) is a writer crafting a novel, however, the respective lives of the protagonist and the characters he creates begin to blur together before the reader’s eyes to marvelous ends. Again, it isn’t easy stating in words exactly what Zambra accomplishes, so I’d really just suggest finding out for yourself. Nonetheless, out of the trilogy, WOGH is undoubtedly the most political novel; in fact, politics and recent Chilean history barely come up in Bonsai and TPLOT, however, the specter of Pinochet looms large in Ways of Going Home, as it does, and to further extent, in My Documents and Chilean Poet respectively.

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If you were only going to read one of Zambra’s three early novels, I would recommend Ways of Going Home for sure, but that isn’t to say that Bonsai and The Private Lives of Trees aren’t great too. I do not believe one needs to read any of these three novels before taking on Chilean Poet, but I might recommend it if only to watch Zambra get better and better at his craft as he goes (you could also do this retroactively as I did). One also does not need to read My Documents before taking on Zambra’s magnum opus, though some interesting crossover does indeed exist between those two latter works. At the end of the day, I personally feel that Zambra is a poet’s fiction writer—or a writer’s writer more generally—so if you fancy yourself a writer in any way whatsoever, I would say: read them all!

By the way, all the most recent English editions of Zambra’s fiction are translated by Megan McDowell, who is one of the foremost translators working in the field of Latin American literature today (perhaps only second in notoriety to Natasha Wimmer, the translator of 2666, etc.). While I have only read one of Zambra’s books in both English and Spanish, I do believe that McDowell astutely and delightfully recreates the idiosyncrasies of Zambra’s brand of quotidian, metafictional literature—this is most definitely the case with Mis documentos/My Documents, and I presume McDowell’s fidelity and lucidity extend across her body of translation work with Zambra.

Anyway, has anyone here read Bonsai, The Privates Lives of Trees, and/or Ways of Going Home? What about My Documents and/or Chilean Poet?

Also, has anyone here read (either of) the two English-language Zambra titles that I have yet to read: Multiple Choice and Childish Literature?

Basically, what I’m asking is: If you’ve read some Zambra, would you please be so kind as to give us your thoughts? Thanks in advance...

If on the other hand, you’ve never read Zambra before, check out his most famous short story (collected in My Documents) for free here: "Thank You" - The Short Story Project.

Finally, here’s a link to my mini write-up on Chilean Poet from last summer in case you’re interested: Chilean Poet ...and also an even more miniature write-up on My Documents, which was one of my very first posts here in r/latamlit: My Documents.

As always, thanks for reading… Peace!

PS — For those of you who have read Nona Fernández: Space Invaders and Ways of Going Home (not to mention My Documents and Chilean Poet) dovetail nicely with one another, and I imagine the same can be said for The Twilight Zone, which I intend to finally read sometime this August for Women in Translation Month!

Do you like reading (anti-)Westerns? For instance, have you read Álvaro Enrigue's most recent publication in English, Now I Surrender? If not, I'd highly recommend it! (See my review here if interested.)

Outside of Latin American literature, have you read any renowned (anti-)Westerns like Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, Oakley Hall's Warlock, and/or John Williams' Butcher's Crossing?

Beyond these modern classics, have you ready any more contemporary (anti-)Westerns, such as Percival Everett's God's Country? (If you're in need of laugh, this short novel is absolutely hilarious in my opinion, but also an astute satire of racism in the United States; think Blazing Saddles on the printed page.)

Regardless, if you're looking to read some (anti-)Westerns that offer perspectives which are decidedly not US-centric, here are three novels from the Hispanophone world worth checking out (full disclosure: to date, I've only read two of the three novels pictured).

Texas: The Great Theft by Carmen Boullosa (México) — Deep Vellum

• This novel (originally published in Spanish in 2013, and translated into English by Samantha Schnee in 2014) revolves around the history of a conflict known as "The Cortina Troubles," which often flies under the radar here in the United States. In Texas, Boullosa represents the truly multicultural nature of nineteenth-century borderland society in and around Texas, as there is a vast array of characters from all walks of life—fugitive slaves, Comanches, cowboys, ranchers, Texas Rangers, Southern debutantes, European immigrants, and more. Within this sociocultural milieu, Boullosa's narrative demonstrates how one act of racial injustice (a mere verbal insult) can spark a firestorm that leads to complete and utter civil unrest. Boullosa's writing in Texas: The Great Theft is especially impressive due to her formal abilities of weaving together myriad different narrative fragments that are attached, respectively, to a multitude of diverse characters.

In the Distance by Hernán Díaz (Argentina) — Coffee House Press

• This novel was originally published in English in 2017. Although Díaz is Argentinian by birth, he now resides in the United States and writes primarily for an Anglophone audience (Díaz's subsequent novel, Trust, was awarded the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; also, Díaz is a top-tier Borges scholar). In the Distance is unlike any other (anti-)Western that I've read, as it depicts a Swedish immigrant (a literal giant of a man) who gets on the wrong boat in New York City, is separated from his beloved brother, and ends up alone in California. Accordingly, the narrative follows the protagonist as he attempts to head, from the West, back east against the current in search of his brother, and along the way, experiences one adventure after another. The novel deals with violence in a really unique and interesting way which never seeks to glorify the act. Ultimately, In the Distance is a (anti-)Western about radical foreignness and the immigrant experience in the United States.

Christ versus Arizona by Camilo José Cela (España) — Dalkey Archive Press

• (I have NOT read this novel!) Firstly, let's get this out of the way: Cela is a polemical figure due to the fact that he served as a censor and informant for the Franco regime during Spain's dictatorship (1939-1975). In any case, his most famous works, The Family of Pascual Duarte (Dalkey) and The Hive (nyrb), are both classic "novelas de la posguerra española" and paradigmatic examples of the literary aesthetic of "el tremendismo" (Pascual Duarte in particular is one of my all-time favorites; it's styled as a found manuscript, so it really harkens back to a longstanding tradition in Spanish letters). Christ versus Arizona was originally published in Spanish in 1988 (the year before Cela won the Nobel Prize in Literature) and translated into English in 2007 (by Martin Sokolinsky). The novel is set in Arizona in 1881, centers on Wyatt Earp and the O.K. Corral, and takes the form of a 250-page single-sentence monologue delivered by the unreliable and grotesquely dim narrator, Wendell L. Espana. Honestly, I was really into Cela for a hot minute circa 2014-2015 (it's a long story that has to do with my study-abroad experience), but I've put off reading this one simply due to the fact that it seems like quite a challenge to say the least. Nevertheless, I'm definitely going to make it happen one of these days... sooner or later...

Anyway, has anyone here read any of these anti-Western novels?

Also, can anyone here think of other works of "latamlit" that could be classified as (anti-)Westerns? Thanks in advance...

Peace!

Have you read You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue?

This was my second read from Enrigue, as I read his most recent English-language publication, Now I Surrender (2026), back in April, but I am no doubt greatly interested in reading more from Álvaro, considering I believe him to be one of the most important writers working in Spanish today.

Curiously, for some reason unbeknownst to me, although You Dreamed of Empires (Tu sueño imperios han sido) was written after Now I Surrender (Ahora me rindo y eso es todo)—as Enrigue himself puts it in his Acknowledgements, “in the plague years of 2020-2022”—it was released in English (2024) before Now I Surrender, which was originally published in Spanish in 2018.

Personally, I feel that You Dreamed of Empires and Now I Surrender are very much in conversation with one another, as both works are invested in exploring the history of conflict between Europeans (and/or Euro-descendants) and indigenous peoples in the Americas as well as the specter of colonialism that continues to haunt the present across the Western Hemisphere, not to mention the globe. Similarly, much of the experimentation with style and form that I encountered in Now I Surrender also makes an appearance—perhaps even more notably—in You Dreamed of Empires.

Right up front, please know that for those of you who happen to take on this novel, I would strongly encourage you to first read the “Note to English-Language Readers” included in the book’s front matter, as the information included therein will certainly aid you in navigating the text and its challenging vocabulary. Enrigue also includes a list of characters for readers to refer back to, as there is quite a cast in You Dreamed of Empires, and all the unique names can be rather hard to keep track of initially, at least until one gets into the groove of the novel.

You Dreamed of Empires is broken up into four parts and the narrative revolves around a nap taken by Moctezuma. While the narrative does make leaps through time on a number of occasions, most of it takes place over the course of a single day: the day Hernán Cortés and his band of conquistadors arrived in Tenochtitlán on November 8, 1519. Find an excerpt below for a little taste of the novel:

>“The afternoon of November 8, 1519, Moctezuma did exactly what he always did after eating, even if the whole world might change forever from the moment he woke up. He lapped the paste of magic mushrooms and honey from the Oaxacan black-clay spoon handed to him by the serving girl, and sat in the sun until he felt his eyes closing. Amid a now absolute silence he walked to his room and his bed. He took off his cape, his mantle, and his breechcloth, and got under the goose-feather coverlet. He pulled it up to his eyebrows and fell asleep.” (75).

The narrator of You Dreamed of Empires is omniscient yet also self-referential (Enrigue basically pulls a Cervantes and shows up in his own novel at one point; see Part II of Don Quixote, 1615), as there exist some striking, if not brief, moments of metafiction that flash like lightning before the reader's eyes. One of my favorite parts about this novel is the narrative voice (i.e. Enrigue’s voice), which shines throughout, as it achieves a matchless balance of historicity and contemporaneity. Stated more plainly: Enrigue does this thing where he writes about history using today's diction, often employing riveting anachronisms—anachronisms that reminded me a lot of reading César Aira’s An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter.

In this vein, I find that Enrigue has an unrivaled ability to represent historical figures in fiction; in my view, he brings Moctezuma, Cortés, etc. to life on the printed page in a way that simply no other writer working today could. Furthermore, Enrigue’s representation of Tenochtitlán and Tlatelolco in 1519 is electric, as at no point in the text did I ever have a tough time imagining the scene (frankly, Enrigue's capacity for representing with real specificity the architecture of Tenochtitlán is beyond impressive). As I see it, Enrigue paints pictures in the medium of language with a level of detail that is exhaustive but never exhausting and that practically transports his readers through space and time.

One of my favorite chapters is the very first, as I could smell and taste the words coming off the page, and the imagery was giving me visuals that nearly felt psilocybin-induced. Accordingly, from my POV, the effect Enrigue achieves is to demonstrate the surreality of history, and in particular, how utterly surreal it truly must have been for the conquistadors and the “Aztecs” (see the “Note to English-Language Readers" for an explanation of why this signifier is polemical) to come face to face with one another. With that in mind, if you like surrealist novels and have any interest in psychedelics whatsoever, you should probably read You Dreamed of Empires straight away! I'm quite sure you’ll enjoy the trip!

Nevertheless, while I do believe You Dreamed of Empires to be an incredibly enjoyable read, I will admit that it can be rather challenging as well; however, I find that quality makes the novel, in turn, all the more rewarding in the end (I had to put forth a bit more effort than usual, but a large part of that has to do with poor timing, as I elected to start this novel at an inopportune moment). For instance, at times, I struggled to keep track of some of the characters and had to go back to the front-matter lists to clear up my confusion; I also had to look up some of the Nahuatl-rooted words on occasion, though as the narrative went on, I definitely got more comfortable in this respect, as Enrigue tends to teach his readers as he narrates. Moreover, I found it somewhat demanding to stay on top of all the politics at play in the Aztec Empire, though the intricacies of Tenochtitlán society are represented with such nuance and care that it’s almost impossible not to find all the political subterfuge absolutely captivating.

Ultimately, with You Dreamed of Empires, Enrigue prods his readers into seeing the history of the conquest and colonization of the Americas in a new light, one which is not dominated by the false illuminations—the illusions and delusions—of Eurocentrism. Nonetheless, at the same time, Enrigue does not glorify Moctezuma and his empire, nor fall into the trap of primitivism; instead, he represents the Aztecs in all their humanity, and to entirely fascinating ends to boot!

Have you read any of Enrigue's books? If so, please drop your thoughts in the comments!

For those of you who have read Sudden Death and/or Hypothermia, what did you think?

If anyone here has read any of Enrigue's works that have yet to be translated into English, what do you make of his earlier output?

As always, thanks for reading... Peace!

Perhaps you haven't noticed, but the reason that I've been less active in our community as of late is that I was on a road trip to/in the Rust Belt where I'm originally from. In between visiting with friends and family, I made some time to check out some of my former favorite used-book hunting grounds in and around my podunk hometown. Here are the four works of Latin American literature that I scored in my extended hunt:

Cuentos de amor de locura y de muerte by Horacio Quiroga (Uruguay)

• To be honest, I have never read any Quiroga, but I am excited to check out some of these stories (if not the entire collection) soon, as I plan to visit Montevideo this fall and really have yet to read much literature from Uruguay. I'm glad I found this title in Spanish too (from Penguin), as I've been meaning to make myself put an end to my laziness when it coms to reading in Spanish. Can anyone here speak to Quiroga?

La trama celeste by Adolfo Bioy Casares (Argentina)

• I read The Invention of Morel this past winter and really enjoyed it. I also have the nyrb classics-series edition of Asleep in the Sun but have not yet given it a go. This is a collection of stories that was ostensibly translated into English and included in the 1964 University of Texas Press edition of The Invention of Morel, however, that publication is most definitely out of print. The version I have here is from Editorial Losada from Buenos Aires; frankly, I can't believe I happened upon this particular title in a secondhand bookstore out in the sticks of the Upper Midwest! I'm going to take that as a sign from the universe that I should read this book sooner rather than later! ¿Hay alguien aquí que haya leído esta colección de cuentos?

The End by Fernanda Torres (Brasil)

• Torres is most renown for her work as an actress, especially after her Oscar-nominated performance in Walter Salles' 2024 film I'm Still Here (Ainda estou aqui). Candidly, I actually had no idea she had written a novel when I saw I'm Still Here last year (it's an incredibly moving film that I would highly recommend for those who are interested in the military dictatorship in Brazil; it's different than Kleber Mendonça Filho's The Secret Agent, which I prefer, but still great!). The End was translated by Alison Entrekin and it is Torres' first novel (2013); to date she has published one other novel, Glory and Its Litany of Honors (2017). I picked up this title for $1 at my mom's favorite local thrift shop; it's published by Restless Books out of Amherst, MA. Has anyone here read Torres before?

The Ill-Fated Peregrinations of Fray Servando by Reinaldo Arenas (Cuba)

• Cuban literature is another major gap in my knowledge of Latin American literature, and Arenas is a writer who has been on my radar for years, though I never gave his work the time of day (for no good reason). In 2001, Penguin reprinted this book in English as Hallucinations: Or, the Ill-Fated Peregrinations of Fray Servando; I have the 1994 edition here, which is also translated by Andrew Hurley. This novel is apparently in the tradition of Don Quixote, Pantagruel, and Candide, which if true, means I am bound to absolutely love it, as I have had a longstanding fascination with literature of the grotesque/carnivalesque (shoutout Bakhtin). Has anyone here read this particular title from Arenas? What about his autobiography, Before Night Falls?

Tell us: Have you scored any secondhand Latin American titles out in the wild recently?!?!

Peace!

I was just on a road trip visiting my podunk Rust-Belt hometown, where I decided to check out some of my former favorite used-book hunting grounds.

While perusing the sale shelves of the local library, I happened upon NDP 133: Stephen Hero by James Joyce.

This edition is marked “ninth printing" and its ultimate copyright is dated 1963.

Anyway, I’m super stoked about scoring this vintage NDP for one dollar!

Can anyone here speak to reading Stephen Hero vs A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man? I read the latter over a decade ago, but am now wondering how substantial the differences between the two texts are. Thanks!

Is there any news related to Latin American literature that you wish to share with the Sub?

Are you aware of any new book releases in the field of Latin American literature? Is there a literary event that you’d like to promote? Do you have any other pertinent information worth sharing here?

Thanks in advance!

**********

The main LatAmLit book release on my radar for the month of July yet again comes from our friends at Charco Press: One Hundred Guinea Pigs by Gustavo Rodríguez

Find a description of the forthcoming Peruvian novel, which is scheduled to be published sometime later this month, below:

>"Friendship makes life worth living, and worth ending too."

>"Eufrasia Vela is a caregiver—it’s not just her job. But when she begins working with Doña Carmen, a bedridden elderly woman who spends her days staring out the window at her now-obstructed view of the sea, she confronts the limits to her ability to help. That is, until Doña Carmen makes a big, last request: to transform her caretaking from helping her stay alive to helping her die. A good death has much in common with a good life, after all, and incapacity, loneliness, and isolation are devastations that a compassionate friend can help ease. Dignity, community, respect, and generosity—they’re what Eufrasia offers her clients, and what their friendship offers her. One Hundred Guinea Pigs is the lifegiving, warmhearted novel about euthanasia you didn’t know you needed."

Aside from the information I've come across on Charco's website, I really don't know much about Gustavo Rodríguez, however, I've been excited about this book release since February or so when I learned that the translator, Daniel Hahn, won an English PEN Translate Award.

I also just realized that the original Spanish-language novel, Cien cuyes, was awarded the Premio Alfaguara 2023, so now I'm even more curious to check out Gustavo Rodríguez's One Hundred Guinea Pigs when Charco Press prints it later this month!

Peace!

Hi, I’m u/perrolazarillo and I’m addicted to buying used books!

Honestly, I’ve been engaging in this type of behavior for quite some time, probably the last 15 years or so: I just can’t help but scour the usually picked-over shelves of thrift shops, secondhand bookstores, street sales, library discard stacks, etc., in a perpetual search for titles that I’ve heard/read about online or elsewhere (to this end, I’m constantly researching new writers whose works might be of interest to me). 

For me, buying used books is a bit like chasing the dragon, or a never-ending treasure hunt, if you will! Nonetheless, while I always enjoy the ephemeral high of striking gold on the shelves, at the same time, I feel weak for regularly giving into my consumeristic urges, but I suppose that, at least in that sense, I can blame my shortcomings on being a typical American (i.e. estadounidense) through and through.

In any case, at the end of the day, I really do get a matchless endorphin rush straight from the ether when, by chance, I happen upon—out in the wild to boot!—a used book that's been on my radar!

OK, so now that my confession is out of the way, here’s 15 works of “latamlit” that I’ve scored over the last few months:

1.) Reputations by Juan Gabriel Vásquez (Colombia)

• Ashamedly, I still haven’t made time to read any JGV, but I really need to correct that soon. I’ll likely start with The Sound of Things Falling, though this novel sounds promising too.

2.) The Selected Poems of Rosario Castellanos by Rosario Castellanos (México)

• I can’t believe I found this vintage edition at a thrift shop! This is a 1988 bilingual parallel-text publication from Graywolf Press. I read Castellanos’s Poesía no eres tú in grad school and enjoyed it!

3.) Nuestra señora de la soledad by Marcela Serrano (Chile)

• I was astounded to find a book published by Alfaguara (one of the best Spanish-language publishers IMO) at another one of my local thrift shops. I don’t know hardly anything about this author, but it’s supposed to be a "novela policíaca" of sorts, so I’m hoping for Claudia Piñiero-type vibes.

4.) Piano Stories by Felisberto Hernández (Uruguay)

• I just snagged this one at my favorite local secondhand bookstore yesterday! I had never heard of this author before—Uruguay is a bit of a blind spot for me—however, apparently Hernández is considered to be one of the originators of magical realism, and has been cited by the likes of Gabriel García Márquez and Julio Cortázar (not to mention Italo Calvino) as a major influence. This title is now available from New Directions, however, the copy I scored (believe it or not: for just $3 due to some laughably minor damage) is a first edition from Marsilio Press based out of Venice, Italy.

5.) George Washington Gómez by Américo Paredes (USA, Chicano)

• I heard about this book years ago in a grad seminar I took on US Latino/a literature, but had since forgotten about it. Still, I've always had good recall and was incredibly surprised to find this copy published by Arte Público Press (U of Houston) at one of my local thrift shops (no, I don’t live in Texas).

6.) The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli (México)

• I was just out of town on vacation and came across this novel, which had been on my radar since I read Luiselli’s Tell Me How It Ends back in 2018, at a small yet labyrinthine secondhand bookstore. I love Coffee House Press—what a score!

7.) Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli (México)

• This Luiselli title had also been on my radar since it first came out in 2019, but I finally just found myself a used copy in decent shape last month while thrifting. I’ve recently become even more interested in this novel after reading Álvaro Enrique’s Now I Surrender (FYI: Luiselli and Enrigue were once married; LCA and NIS were ostensibly both written, at least in part, during the same family road trip). Although I bought this book stateside, this particular edition is from 4th Estate out of London, England.

8.) The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa (Perú)

• I have never read any of Vargas Llosa’s work. In my mind, I’ve always been more interested in his earlier novels, however, I understand that this one is perhaps his most famous. Thus, when I came across this Picador edition at my local library, I jumped at the chance to take it home for the killer price of a mere 50 cents.

 

9.) I, the Supreme by Augusto Roa Bastos (Paraguay)

• This is the only book by a Paraguayan author that I own; it was a recent secondhand-bookstore find. I have seen this book mentioned/discussed quite a bit on social media, but have not yet tried it out for myself, as it’s a rather intimidating tome. Has anyone here read it? By the way, I own one other book from this “Aventura: The Vintage Library of Contemporary World Literature” series (i.e. Julio Cortázar’s We Love Glenda So Much and A Change of Light), and have a hankering to track down more.

10.) Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector (Brasil)

• I imagine that my love for New Directions is no secret. So, when I stumbled upon a near-mint-condition copy of Near to the Wild Heart at one of my local thrifts, you already know I got all giddy—and may have even jumped—with joy!

11.) The Land by Antônio Torres (Brasil)

• I didn’t know anything about this novel nor its author before laying my eyes on its spine in a secondhand bookstore a few weeks ago. This title is published by the non-profit Readers International, which I really don’t know much about (their website hits like an ode to the dial-up era!). I own one other title from this press: El Infierno by Uruguayan author Carlos Martínez Moreno, which I still have yet to read (are you noticing a pattern?).

12.) I’ll Sell You A Dog by Juan Pablo Villalobos (México)

• This novel sounds crazy and hilarious to me; I haven’t read JPV to date but have heard Down the Rabbit Hole is especially great! Has anyone here read this one? In case you were unaware, And Other Stories is an excellent, UK-based press that mainly focuses on literature in translation.

13.) Ways of Going Home by Alejandro Zambra (Chile)

• I was pumped to find this Zambra title while thrifting… then I started flipping through the pages and came across the unsightly snail trail of a yellow highlighter (generally, I can stomach others' marginalia and markings as long as they're written neatly, preferably in pencil rather than pen; however, I personally believe using highlighter in a book is an abomination! Anyway, the previous owner of this one only defiled four pages in total with his/her highlighter, so this time, I decided to let it slide). I read this brief novel last week and plan to post my thoughts in the coming days, so keep your eyes peeled (sneak peek: I loved it!).

14.) The Twilight Zone by Nona Fernández (Chile)

• Last month, I was in Charleston, South Carolina, and popped into one of the branches of their public library system on a whim; serendipitously (at the time, Fernández’s name had been coming up in discussion rather frequently here in r/latamlit), I was able to nab this discarded title for less than a dollar! Unlike the aforementioned Castellanos title, this is a much more recent publication from Graywolf Press, a publisher that I greatly respect.

15.) That’s Life / Así es la vida by Jack Delano (Puerto Rico, Ukraine)

• Finally, I also thrifted this intriguing book from University of Puerto Rico Press. I don’t know much about Russian Empire-born Jack Delano (1914, modern-day Ukraine) but I’m curious to learn more. Delano is primarily known for his photography, however, he was also an accomplished cartoonist (pen name: Joaquín); this bilingual book collects a large swath of Joaquín’s cartoons published between 1955 and 1963 in The Island Times, an English-language weekly located in San Juan. (See second attached photo for a small sample).

(Please note that this stack of books is not the same as my TBR stack, which is in a state of constant evolution. If I were to move one of these books up to the tippy top of my TBR stack today, I’d probably select Felisberto Hernández’s Piano Stories out of sheer curiosity, though, Nona Fernández’s The Twilight Zone is one that I’ve been intending to read for a little while now, so I’ll likely knock that one out before any other title pictured here.)

I’ll be the first to admit that I have a bit of a book-buying "problem," one which has led to a serious backlog of unread tiles. However, I opt to think of my immeasurable TBR stack along the lines of the Japanese concept of “tsundoku,” which the BBC distinguishes from bibliomania accordingly: “Bibliomania describes the intention to create a book collection, tsundoku describes the intention to read books and their eventual, accidental collection” (free article: Tsundoku—BBC).

So, I guess this is all to say, I’ll eventually get around to reading all my books… one of these days…

Anyway, has anyone here read any of these titles? Please let us know in the comments!

Peace!

I picked up this NDP title at a secondhand bookstore recently on a whim, and now I’m just wondering if anyone here has read it and might be able to provide some insight…

Here’s the book’s description directly from New Directions’ website:

“The young artist and writer Yevgenia Belorusets was in her hometown of Kyiv when Putin’s ‘special military operation’ against Ukraine began on the morning of February 24, 2022. With the shelling of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa, and Kherson, the war with Russia had clearly, irreversibly begun: ‘I thought, this has been allowed to happen, it is a crime against everything human, against a great common space where we live and hope for a future.’ With power and clarity, the War Diary of Yevgenia Belorusets documents the long beginning of the devastation and its effects on the ordinary residents of Ukraine: what it feels like to interact with the strangers who suddenly become your ‘countrymen’; the struggle to make sense of a good mood on a spring day; the new danger of a routine coffee run. First published in the German newspaper Der Spiegel and then translated and released each day on the site ISOLARII (and on Artforum), the War Diary had an immediate impact worldwide: it was translated by an anonymous collective of writers on Weibo; read live by Margaret Atwood on International Women’s Day; adapted for an episode of This American Life on NPR; and brought to the 2022 Venice Biennale as part of the pavilion ‘This is Ukraine: Defending Freedom.’”

Thanks in advance!

“If there is one contemporary writer who defies classification, it is César Aira… Aira is an eccentric, but he is also one of the three or four best writers working in Spanish today.” — Roberto Bolaño (excerpted from “El increíble César Aira,” originally published in Entre paréntesis, 2004).

Well, I did it! I finally read my first Aira… now I only have one hundred or so more to go before I can call myself an “Aira Completist”… (/s)

In all seriousness though, have you read César Aira? If so, which book(s)?

For those of you who have yet to check out Aira, you might be wondering: ”Where does one begin?” (I’ve actually seen this very question pop up here in the community several times over the last few months).

Personally, I started with An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter (published by New Directions) at the behest of u/sloweducation1, u/WhereIsArchimboldi, and u/2sweetsavage (you all might not realize it, but you definitely inspired me to seek out and read this true marvel of a novel, so thanks a million!).

Despite having only read a single work by Aira, I must say that I certainly do not disagree with what Bolaño himself had to say about the man back in 2004 (see quote above).

Let me be more direct: An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter was amazing! I absolutely loved it and I’m looking forward to taking on more Aira soon! I have Ghosts and Shantytown at home, so my next read from Aira is liable to be one of the two, however, I’m super curious about How I Became a Nun as well (FYI: all of these English-language titles are published by New Directions). Which other Aira titles should be high on my list? The Literary Conference? The Hare? Something else?

In any event, so as to ensure that you all are up to speed, here’s New Directions’s synopsis of the Aira novel currently in question:

>“An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter is the story of a moment in the life of the German artist Johan Moritz Rugendas (1802-1858). Greatly admired as a master landscape painter, he was advised by Alexander von Humboldt to travel West from Europe to record the spectacular landscapes of Chile, Argentina, and Mexico. Rugendas did in fact become one of the best of the nineteenth-century European painters to venture into Latin America. However this is not a biography of Rugendas. This work of fiction weaves an almost surreal history around the secret objective behind Rugendas’ trips to America: to visit Argentina in order to achieve in art the “physiognomic totality” of von Humboldt’s scientific vision of the whole. Rugendas is convinced that only in the mysterious vastness of the immense plains will he find true inspiration. A brief and dramatic visit to Mendoza gives him the chance to fulfill his dream. From there he travels straight out onto the pampas, praying for that impossible moment, which would come only at an immense price—an almost monstrously exorbitant price—that would ultimately challenge his drawing and force him to create a new way of making art. A strange episode that he could not avoid absorbing savagely into his own body interrupts the trip and irreversibly and explosively marks him for life.”

I don’t believe I’ve ever read a work quite like Aira’s An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter; it’s truly unique! In spite of its idiosyncratic nature, Landscape Painter resembles a rather traditional narrative, at least in the sense that it’s not highly fragmented nor structured around chapters, section breaks, or elipses. Instead, it is one single, flowing narrative, albeit broken up into paragraphs, consisting of approximately 85 pages (in English). Nevertheless, Landscape Painter is still an experimental, surrealist novel in my view, though, Aira’s form of experimentation occurs more at the sentence level, as some of the phrases he concocts and passages he stirs up are utterly unmatched in terms of novelty.

When the reader lays eyes on the text in its totality, that is, by simply flipping through the pages that comprise the novel, the structure of Landscape Painter appears deceptively straightforward. However, once one actually begins to read the text, they are met with surprise after surprise. In this vein, a particular aspect of Aira’s style that I’m just beginning to wrap my brain around is his use of “digression.”

Due to the fact that César and I are new acquaintances, I encourage you all to do your own research (straight up: just Google “Aira digression”), but in any case, allow me to attempt to put into my own words what exactly constitutes a “digression” in Aira’s oeuvre: OK, so basically you’re reading the narrative, right?, following along with the plot, getting to know the characters, etc., when all of a sudden, new sentence, Aira hits pause on relating the concrete action of the story and instead ventures off into an extended meditation on [insert heady epistemological/ontological topic here] for a paragraph or three before picking back up the plotline he suspended temporarily in order to resume telling the overarching narrative.

Such digressions are simultaneously jarring and exhilarating, as they often present the reader with delicious anachronisms that could only ever exist within the surrealist, dream logic of Aira’s literary aesthetic. Here’s an excerpt from the text that has really stuck with me since I finished Landscape Painter last week (marked appropriately for spoilers); to set this passage up for you all, what’s important to know is that the two protagonists of the novel have been tasked with representing “the physiognomy of nature” via their artwork:

>“Both of them had been making these discrete sketches with the sole aim of composing stories, or scenes from stories. The scenes would be part of the larger story of >!the raid!<, which in turn was a very minor episode in the ongoing clash of civilizations. There is an analogy that, although far from perfect, may shed some light on this process of reconstruction. Imagine a brilliant police detective summarizing his investigations for the husband of the victim, the widower. Thanks to his subtle deductions he has been able to ‘reconstruct’ how the murder was committed; he does not know the identity of the murderer, but he has managed to work out everything else with an almost magical precision, as if had seen it happen. And his interlocutor, the widower, who is, in fact, the murderer, has to admit that the detective is a genius, because it really did happen exactly as he says; yet at the same time, although of course he actually saw it happen and is the only living eyewitness as well as the culprit, he cannot match what happened with what the policeman is telling him, not because there are errors, large or small, in the account, or details out of place, but because the match is inconceivable, there is such an abyss between one story and the other, or between a story and the lack of a story, between the lived experience and the reconstruction (even when the reconstruction has been executed to perfection) that the widower simply cannot see the a relation between them; which leads him to conclude that he is innocent, that he did not kill his wife.” (73-74)

The above digression is one of many throughout the text of Landscape Painter. Nonetheless, this particular example illustrates some of Aira’s primary thematic concerns (as I see them) in the novel, namely the intrinsically imperfect nature of representation, both via the plastic arts as well as via literature, language. This is to intimate that Landscape Painter is, in part, a work of metafiction, as the narrator of the novel often reflects on the narrative while in the process of recounting it.

For me, Aira’s language in Landscape Painter is dense and borders on the baroque, albeit beautifully so; it’s also chocked full of symbolic meaning and surrealist imagery, and yet still, it’s highly readable (however, I will admit that I read this novel at a bit of a slower pace than usual). Much like Bolaño, in my view, Aira achieves a brand of literary surrealism that is plot-driven and character-forward, rather than being overly esoteric and abstruse, which frankly I believe to be the case with some contemporary surrealist authors I’ve read. So, I guess this is all to say, if you love Bolaño but have been looking to branch out, Aira just might be the writer you’re seeking!

By the way, just to put it on your radar: on July 28, 2026, New Directions will publish Five by César Aira, which is a collection of five (go figure!) short novel(la)s. At the moment, I’m thinking I’ll pick up a copy for myself, but that remains to be seen...

Anyway, have you read An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter? What about some of Aira’s other works? In either case, would you care to drop your thoughts in the comments below?

As always, thanks for reading… Peace!

Have you read Space Invaders? What about any of Nona Fernández's other works?

I read Space Invaders over the course of three hours or so last Friday and really enjoyed it! This was my first read from Fernández, however, I have a discarded library copy of The Twilight Zone, also from Graywolf Press, here at home as well that I'm planning to read sometime soon after liking this one as much as I did.

In case you're curious, Fernández has one more book (as far as I can tell) currently published in English (yet again by Graywolf) titled Voyager: Constellations of Memory, which is a memoir/work of non-fiction.

In October of 2025, Fernández published Marciano in Spanish (it has not yet been translated into English), and the 500ish-page novel appears to be racking up a number of highly positive reviews. Per the publisher description, it's one I'd be interested in getting my hands on in the original Spanish, as I'm not sure I'm willing to wait out the translation process, but I guess we'll see how much I dig The Twilight Zone...

Anyway, back to Space Invaders! I loved this little book, and must say that Graywolf's editions of Fernández's works in English are rather striking to my eye. I'm also quite fond of their size, format, and feel. Mad props, Graywolf!

Space Invaders is a surrealist novel which blurs the line between dreams and memory. To that end, check out this lovely, spoiler-free passage:

>"We don't know whether this is a dream or a memory. Sometimes we think it's a memory creeping into our dreams, a scene that escaped from one person's head, lurking in everyone's dirty sheets. It might have been lived once, by us or by someone else. It might have been staged or even made-up, but the more we think about it the more we're sure it's just a dream that gradually became memory. If dreams and memories were truly different, we might be able to identify its source, but on our memoryless mattresses everything is mixed-up and the truth is that it doesn't really matter anymore." (31)

The narrative is broken up into four sections, which mirror the titular video game from the title: "First Life," "Second Life," "Third Life," and "Game Over." Nevertheless, while this fragmented 70-page novel(la) takes its name from "Space Invaders", the video game itself only plays a small, albeit significant, role in the narrative. In other words, if you're like me and happen to more or less despise games of all sorts (I know, I'm such a curmudgeon), you'll still be able to appreciate Space Invaders regardless!

To be honest, after my less-than-worthwhile reading experience with Ito Romo's Filth Eaters immediately prior, I was a little apprehensive about reading another brief novel with lots of fragmentation; however, whereas Romo bit off more than he could chew in about 130ish pages, Fernández's style, themes, and narrative structure are all super well suited for 70 pages or so.

Despite the fact that, in my view, the real magic of Space Invades exists beyond the plotline at the sentence level, in order to avoid spoilers, I am largely going to refrain from discussing any concrete action from the story. In any case, just to make sure you're up to speed, below is the novel's synopsis taken straight from Graywolf's website:

>"Space Invaders is the story of a group of childhood friends who, in adulthood, are preoccupied by uneasy memories and visions of their classmate Estrella González Jepsen. In their dreams, they catch glimpses of Estrella’s braids, hear echoes of her voice, and read old letters that eventually, mysteriously, stopped arriving. They recall regimented school assemblies, nationalistic class performances, and a trip to the beach. Soon it becomes clear that Estrella’s father was a ranking government officer implicated in the violent crimes of the Pinochet regime, and the question of what became of her after she left school haunts her erstwhile friends. Growing up, these friends—from her pen pal, Maldonado, to her crush, Riquelme—were old enough to sense the danger and tension that surrounded them, but powerless in the face of it. They could control only the stories they told each other and the “ghostly green bullets” they fired in the video game they played obsessively."

>"One of the leading Latin American writers of her generation, Nona Fernández effortlessly builds a choral voice and constantly shifting image of young life in the waning years of the dictatorship. In her short but intricately layered novel, she summons the collective memory of a generation, rescuing felt truth from the oblivion of official history."

Something that I wish to make you all aware of is the significance of the name Estrella González, which Fernández alludes to in the text. Each of the four parts of the novel is broken into smaller sections which occasionally vary in style and form. In particular, there are some sections which are epistolary in nature, as Fernández structures them as letters written from Estrella González to Maldonado, the only character to receive such correspondence. In light of this, in section IV of "First Life," Fernández writes:

>Maldonado dreams blue words in girls' handwriting. The most frequently repeated word is a name. It's written on he flap of the envelope and at the end of each letter. Beside it is the drawing of an inked-in star, like a kind of brand, and emblem fallen from some flag." (11)

If you've just read this quote and are now wondering: what's this dude's point? Take a look at the Chilean flag! Do you see which star—that is, estrella—Fernández is referencing? Also, in case you were unaware, "González" is the most-common last name in Chile. Accordingly, with this in mind, the character of Estrella González serves as a personification of Chile during Pinochet's regime (1973-1990); she is, from my perspective, the embodiment of the nation under dictatorship.

To wrap up my thoughts here, I wish to conclude by briefly thinking about the connection, as I see it, between Space Invaders and Roberto Bolaño's Amulet. Near the very end of Amulet, Auxilio Lacouture (the novel's protagonist) has a vision of sorts in which she sees "a multitude of young people, an interminable legion of young people on the march to somewhere" (181, New Directions). Subsequently, Auxilio goes on to relate:

>"The children, the young people, were singing and heading for the abyss... I hear them singing still... [And] although they were swallowed by the abyss, the song remained in the air... A barely audible song, a song of war and love... And that song is our amulet" (182-84, Ibid.)

Keeping this piecemeal Bolaño passage in mind, now check out these lines lifted from Space Invaders:

>"We've never done it before, but we're doing it... We go marching... Not retreating... Someone shouts something and someone repeats it. Somebody else shouts something and many others repeat it. We shout what's being shouted. We don't understand what it means, but that's what we do. We a howl a howl that comes from somewhere that isn't our mouths, a chant invented and started by others, but meant for us." (41-42)

So, here's my contention: the howl-like chant represented in Space Invaders is the "Amulet" of which Bolaño/Auxilio speaks. That is to say, the above passage from Fernández is an intertextual allusion referencing the "ghost-song or its echo" that was once sung—and is still being heard—by "a whole generation of young Latin Americans being led to sacrifice" (184, Bolaño) in Amulet!

If you've read both Amulet and Space Invaders, what do you make of this connection?

If on the other hand you've only read Fernández, would you care to share your thoughts about her work? Not only regarding Space Invaders but really any of her books!

Per usual, thanks for reading... Peace!

Deep Vellum published Ito Romo’s new novel Filth Eaters on May 19, 2026. About a week later, I finally mustered up the courage to brave the notoriously hellacious traffic of the major US city in which I currently reside in order to drive across town to my favorite local bookstore where prior I had preordered Filth Eaters on something of a whim. Once I got the novel home, I sat on it for a couple weeks, then finally read it over the course of three days (way more than needed), finishing last Monday, June 8. Accordingly, I’ve had a week to mull Filth Eaters over, and now must be frank, I didn’t love it.

Has anyone else here yet had a chance to read Ito Romo’s Filth Eaters? If so, would you care to chime in?

Not that it really matters, but the aforementioned whim I experienced was algorithm-induced no doubt, as I follow Deep Vellum on Instagram, which is how I first became aware of Ito Romo and his new novel. Here’s some biographical information on the author taken straight from Deep Vellum’s website (and also included at the end of Filth Eaters):

>“Ito Romo was born and raised on the border in Laredo, Texas. His work, dubbed “Chicano Gothic” and “Chicano Noir,” shows the dark and gritty life along Interstate 35 through South Texas, where his family has lived for 11 generations. A former Professor of English Language and Literature, Romo was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters in 2019. His books include The Border is Burning  and El Puente / The Bridge, both published by University of New Mexico Press. He lives in San Antonio.”

I decided to read Filth Eaters based primarily on its synopsis (see below) as well as Deep Vellum’s reputation for putting out high-quality works of literary fiction and classics written by Mexican and Chicano/a authors (I own Carmen Boullosa’s Texas: The Great Theft and Juan Rulfo’s The Golden Cockerel from Deep Vellum too). Candidly, I was also quite intrigued to see what “Chicano Gothic-Noir” is all about, and furthermore, must admit that I’ve always been a bit of a sucker for vampire narratives. Now that I think of it, I suppose it’s also worth mentioning that I was more or less “glamoured” by the startling yet alluring image jumping out from the novel’s front cover.

In order to get everyone in the loop, here’s a synopsis of the novel also excerpted from Deep Vellum’s website (and found on the back cover of the book):

>“A high-strung and inventive literary horror that will delight fans of Stephen Graham Jones and Mariana Enriquez, Ito Romo’s debut novel traces the thousand-year lineage of a new kind of vampire—the mestizo Filth Eater.”

>“Granada, 1849. After centuries of scrounging in the shadows, the vampire Radamés discovers an ancient Aztec codex that reveals the vampires of the “New World” live a more “human” life—they marry, they give birth. Spurred on by tantalizing promise of a fuller existence, Radamés glamours and schemes his way onto a ship headed for Mexico. There, in the underbelly of the forgotten city of Teotihuacán, the Andalusian vampire falls in love with a member of this ancient sect of vampires who call themselves Filth Eaters. From their union, the mestizo vampire Doro is born.” 

>“Hopping back and forth in time from the Indus River Delta in 1099 to the Muslim Spanish empire of the 1400s to a flooded cyberpunk New York City of the future, Filth Eaters  pulls at the threads of empire, greed, and climate collapse, but the beating, bloody heart of the story is our very human desire for the love that gives life meaning. The debut novel from a celebrated writer of “Chicano Gothic” stories, this surprising, gory saga turns a new page for a centuries-old genre.”

I had never heard of Stephen Graham Jones before encountering Deep vellum’s description of Filth Eaters; nevertheless, I looked up some of his books (e.g. The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, 2025), and have to say that they strike me, at least on the surface, as rather interesting. On the other hand, I have read some of Mariana Enriquez’s work, but only The Dangers of Smoking Bed. I would be curious to know if anyone here has read Our Share of Night as well as Filth Eaters (looking at you, u/workisheat), and in that case, if they happened to notice any parallels between the two novels, aside from the obvious, general horror connection.

My favorite part about Filth Eaters is its incredibly expansive scope (take a look at the second attached photo for a chapter breakdown demonstrating how much time and historical ground Romo’s brief, 130ish-page novel truly covers). Moreover, I greatly appreciated the speculative, sci-fi, and futuristic aspects of the narrative as well as Romo’s dialogues with world history, as he interweaves myriad historical threads with various vampire legends, and a number of different mythological traditions, including Aztec, Romani, Christian, and more. Beyond all this, Romo also plays with the national mythologies of Mexico, and in particular, the notion of mestizaje.

Although Romo deals with some really compelling artistic concerns in Filth Eaters, I am sorry to say that while reading the book I often felt the caliber of his writing did not live up to the creativity of his imaginative ideas nor the weighty themes with which he wrangled. In other words, there are moments in Romo’s novel that feel like literary fiction, and they are pretty great n my view, however, I believe those moments of greatness are overshadowed by the rest of the book which reads more like genre fiction, namely of the horror variety.

With that out of the way, it should also be stated that perhaps my distaste for genre fiction has more to do with my expectations as a reader than it does with the quality of writing in Filth Eaters, considering that I normally do not read much straight-up horror fiction (I know, I’m a super pretentious POS!). Then again, there were some sentences I came across in Filth Eaters that had me questioning the entire editing process of the novel; that is to say, whether certain sentences contained typographical errors, or were merely poorly constructed. To be blunt, on occasion, I even found Romo’s word choice to be somewhat pedestrian and repetitive.

Beyond the sentence level, I also believe that the narrative as a whole leaves a lot to be explained, and not in a way that reads like a sly stylistic choice meant to be thought-provoking for the reader, but rather, in a way that, to me, felt undeveloped or not fully conceived. For instance (don't worry, I won’t explain in concrete detail in order to avoid spoilers), I found the ending in particular to be especially disappointing, largely due to the fact that I don't think Romo sufficiently illustrates the primary motivations behind his main characters's actions. For me, most all the characters feel like flimsily formed foils who are motivated by such vague, yet easily summed-up, universal notions as “love” and “hate” (Romo literally employs these very terms in numerous instances throughout the text).

In spite of my general disappointment with the overall narrative of Filth Eaters, both in regards to plot as well as to style, the most fascinating aspects of Romo’s novel had to do with his speculative envisioning of the future. Romo’s vision of the future is definitely a bleak one, >!as New York City (and in my interpretation, by extension the world) have undergone an environmental disaster that has culminated in the form of a dystopian (global) society. However, in said society, Doro, one of the novel’s vampire protagonists, has made a fortune by creating video-drone technology that he uses to record his kills and then post the clips of himself feeding on human blood to his dark-web website, “VamPorn.”!< Although I was intrigued by these ideas while reading the narrative, again I believe that Romo could have explored such themes with much more breadth and profundity. To this end, I honestly think that Filth Eaters could (and probably should) be about 100 pages longer (at least!).

Anyway, all of this is to say, then, that I think you should read Filth Eaters if you are a steadfast fan of horror genre fiction, and vampire narratives in particular. I also think you should read Filth Eaters if you are interested in Aztec mythology and/or discourses related to Mexico’s national myth of mestizaje. In this vein, I believe Romo’s novel is ripe for serious critical analysis by a grad student or professor rather than a failed academic like myself, so if you’re in academia, you might also want to give this book a look.

Conversely, if you are searching for your next life-changing “latamlit” read, this most likely isn’t it. As much as it pains me to say—because I truly wanted to enjoy Filth Eaters a whole lot more than I actually did—I do not believe Romo’s writing is on par with the greats of Latin American literature. Frankly, even aside from the indisputable “greats,” I do not think, unfortunately, that Romo’s writing matches up with the likes of many Latin American, nor Chicano/a, authors writing literary fiction today. To reiterate, perhaps this again has more to do with my tastes and expectations as a reader, however, I believe Filth Eaters to be a work of genre fiction with flashes of high literature, but in my opinion those flashes are few and far between. But maybe that's your thing; it certainly isn't mine.

If you’ve read Filth Eaters and/or any of Ito Romo’s other books, would you please be so kind as to share your thoughts in the comments below? (Much appreciated!)

As always, thank you for reading… Peace!