Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
From Carlos Fonseca comes Austral, a dazzling novel about legacy, memory, and the desire to know and be known...
Synopsis
From Carlos Fonseca comes a dazzling novel about legacy, memory, and the desire to know and be known.
The English writer Aliza Abravanel races to finish her final novel before her mind deteriorates. The last living speaker of a language is confronted with the disappearance of his culture. Through the construction of an esoteric theater of memory, a survivor of the Guatemalan genocide seeks to recover the memories buried in the trauma of war. Seeking the connecting thread between these three stories of loss is Julio, a disillusioned professor of literature who receives a posthumous summons from his old friend Aliza that will send him hurtling into a painful episode from his past.
A novel of compassion and of return--to one's native country, to one's darkest memories, to oneself--Austral maps a journey from war-ravaged Guatemala to the high Peruvian Amazon, passing through Nueva Germania, the antisemitic commune founded in Paraguay by Elisabeth F rster-Nietzsche. A treasure box of intertwined stories, it is a fascinating investigation into the pain of loss, the disappearance of language and memory, and the dangers of globalization. With this dazzling exploration of the traces we leave behind, those we erase, and those we seek to rebuild, Carlos Fonseca confirms his status as one of the most powerful voices in contemporary Latin American literature.
Includes black-and-white illustrations
Synopsis
From Carlos Fonseca comes a dazzling novel about legacy, memory, and the desire to know and be known.
Julio is a disillusioned professor of literature, a per-petual wanderer who has spent years away from his home, teaching in the United States. He receives a posthumous summons from an old friend, the writer Aliza Abravanel, to uncover the mysteries within her final novel. Aliza had raced to finish her work as her mind deteriorated. In her man-uscript is a series of interconnected accouncs of loss, tales that set Julio hurtling on a journey to uncover their true meaning. Austral tracks Julio's trip from Aliza's home in an Argentine artists' colony to a forgotten city in Guatemala, to the Peruvian Amazon, and through Nueva Germania, the anti-semitic commune in Paraguay founded by Elisabeth Forster-Nietzsche.
A story of mourning and return-to one's na-tive country, to one's darkest memories, to oneself- Carlos Fonseca's Austral interrogates the obsessions and upheavals faced by survivors of a rapidly glob-alizing world. A treasure map of intertwined ex-periences, each cleaving its own path through time, the novel is a fascinating investigation into the dis-appearance of culture and memory and a chart-ing of the furthest limits of what language can do. With this remarkable exploration of the traces we leave behind, chose we erase, and how we seek to rebuild, Carlos Fonseca confirms his status as one of the most powerful voices in contemporary Latin American literature.