Synopses & Reviews
Once outside its flowerpot, the tree ceases to be a bonsai."Winner of Chile’s Literary Critics’ Award for Best Novel"
Hailed as a great Latin American literary event, this stylistically innovative, elliptically told tale of a young man and his love who mysteriously disappears is, as the narrator tells us, “a simple story that becomes complicated.”
Through both the distance and closeness of these young lovers, Alejandro Zambra brilliantly explores the relationship between art, love, and life. Bonsai is accessible yet profound—as one critic in Chile’s Capital newspaper put it, “Brief as a sigh and forceful as a blow.”
The Contemporary Art of the Novella series is designed to highlight work by major authors from around the world. In most instances, as with Imre Kertész, it showcases work never before published; in others, books are reprised that should never have gone out of print. It is intended that the series feature many well-known authors and some exciting new discoveries. And as with the original series, The Art of the Novella, each book is a beautifully packaged and inexpensive volume meant to celebrate the form and its practitioners.
Synopsis
"Winner of Chile’s Literary Critics’ Award for Best Novel"Now a Major Motion Picture
Hailed as a great Latin American literary event, this stylistically innovative, elliptically told tale of a young man and his love who mysteriously disappears is, as the narrator tells us, “a simple story that becomes complicated.”
Through both the distance and closeness of these young lovers, Alejandro Zambra brilliantly explores the relationship between art, love, and life. Bonsai is accessible yet profound—as one critic in Chile’s Capital newspaper put it, “Brief as a sigh and forceful as a blow.”
About the Author
Alejandro Zambra is a poet, novelist, and literary critic who was born in Santiago, Chile, in 1975. He was selected as one of
Granta’s Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelists and was elected to the Bogotá39 list and is acclaimed as the greatest writer of Chile’s younger generation. He is also the author of
Ways of Going Home and
The Private Lives of Trees.
Translator CAROLINA DE ROBERTIS was raised in England, Switzerland, and California by Uruguayan parents. Her fiction and literary translations have appeared in ColorLines, The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Indiana Review, and elsewhere. She is the author of The Invisible Mountain and Perla.