From Powells.com
Our favorite books of the year.
Staff Pick
The second metafictional, heady tale to appear in English translation from Chilean author Carlos Labbé (a musician and literary critic, too), Loquela, like Navidad & Matanza before it, demands deserves a careful, close reading. There is nothing arduous (nor tedious) about Labbé's writing — quite the contrary — but as an experimental novelist of great skill, his works beg for full immersion from the reader.
Loquela, first published in 2009 (when Labbé was in his early 30s), is a referential hybrid novel that is part detective tale and part exploration into literary creation and the dueling roles of author and character. Albinos, an imaginary land, a new literary movement (these aren't your favorite Chilean writer's Infrarealsists, but something far more ambitious), and a triptychal narrative perspective combine to defy succinct summarization.
Labbé, one of Granta's "Best Young Spanish Language Novelists," has published five novels and a short story collection. The two already available in English translation make abundantly clear that Labbé has some serious literary chops. Loquela, while engaging and technically proficient upon first read, is likely to reveal an even greater vitality the second time through. For fans of fine literature in translation, Labbé and Loquela should be considered required reading. Recommended By Jeremy G., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Loquela, Carlos Labbé's fourth novel and second to be translated into English, is a narrative chameleon, a shape-shifting exploration of fiction's possibilities.
At a basic level, this is a distorted detective novel mixed with a love story and a radical statement about narrative art. Beyond the silence that unites and separates Carlos and Elisa, beyond the game that estranges the albino girls, Alicia and Violeta, from pleasant summer evenings, beyond the destiny of Neutria — a city that disappears with childhood — and beyond a Chilean literary movement that could be the last vanguard, while at the same time the greatest falsification, questions arise concerning who truly writes for whom in a novel — the author or the reader.
Through an array of voices, overlapping storylines, a kaleidoscope of literary references, and a delirious, precise prose, Labbé carves out a space for himself among such great form-defying Latin American writers as Juan Carlos Onetti and Jorge Luis Borges.
Synopsis
Playing with the form of a detective novel, Labbé investigates the nature and purpose of writing itself.
About the Author
Carlos Labbé, one of
Granta's "Best Young Spanish-Language Novelists," was born in Chile and is the author of a collection of short stories and six novels, one of which,
Navidad and Matanza, is available in English from Open Letter. In addition to his writings he is a musician, and has released three albums.
Will Vanderhyden received an MA in Literary Translation from the University of Rochester. He has translated fiction by Carlos Labbé, Edgardo Cozarinsky, Alfredo Bryce Echenique, Juan Marsé, Rafael Sanchez Ferlosio, and Elvio Gandolfo.