Synopses & Reviews
One of the late Juan Jos Saer's most beloved novels, The Regal Lemon Tree shows a master stylist at his best. Set during day and night of New Year's Eve — building up a barbecue that takes on ritual significance — the novel focuses on a couple in the north of Argentina who lost their only son eight years prior. Wenceslao spends the day with his extended family and his memories while his wife — truly paralyzed by grief — refuses to leave their island, which is home to an almost magical lemon tree that blossoms at all times of the year. With the recurring phrase, "dawn breaks, and his eyes are already open," the novel takes on a dreamlike quality, manifesting the troubles the couple has suffered under with an eeriness that calls to mind the work of David Lynch.
Review
"What Saer presents marvelously is the experience of reality, and the
characters' attempts to write their own narratives within its excess." Bookforum
Review
"Brilliant. . . . Saer's
The Sixty-Five Years of Washington captures the wildness of human experience in all its variety." New York Times
Review
"A cerebral explorer of the problems of narrative in the wake of Joyce
and Woolf, of Borges, of Rulfo and Arlt, Saer is also a stunning poet of
place." The Nation
About the Author
Juan José Saer was the leading Argentinian writer of the
post-Borges generation. The author of numerous novels and short-story
collections (including
Scars and
La Grande), Saer was awarded Spain's prestigious Nadal Prize in 1987 for
The Event. Six of his novels are available from Open Letter Books.
Sergio Waisman has translated sever books of Latin American literature, including
The Absent City by Ricardo Piglia, for which he received an NEA Translation Fellowship Award in 2000. His first novel,
Leaving, was published in the U.S. in 2004 and in 2010 as
Irse in Argentina. His latest translations are
Target in the Night by Piglia,
The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela, and
An Anthology of Spanish-American Modernismo.