Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro (tr. Frances Riddle)

yellow book cover with woman's head on it, held against red background

a nutshell: over the course of a single day, an elderly Argentinian woman’s gruelling (and gripping) pursuit of answers about her daughter’s death leads to a revelation she never sought

a line: “Are you your brain, which keeps sending out orders that won’t be followed? Or are you the thought itself, something that can’t be seen or touched beyond that furrowed organ guarded inside the cranium like a trove?”

an image: the depiction of Elena’s deaf body – owing to late-stage Parkinson’s disease – surrounded by deaf ears was one that stuck with me, conjuring the somewhat overwhelming and oppressive notion of feeling ignored both internally and externally

a thought: yes this book delves into what it means to have control over our bodies, but it also goes deeper – powerfully exploring forces of control over our minds and the disasters that can ensue from thinking we Know when in fact we merely Believe

a fact: at the end of 2020, Argentina’s Congress legalised abortion (catalysed by the mighty ‘green wave’ women’s movement), marking an historic step forward in a region where termination laws are among the world’s most restrictive

want to read Elena Knows? visit here

Notes from Childhood by Norah Lange (tr. Charlotte Whittle)

pink and blue book cover with corner of woman's face

a nutshell: this ethereal web of memories gives a glimpse into the writer’s intriguing childhood in early 20th-century Argentina

a line: “I began to wonder if it was really true that by night I was dead”

an image: I loved the way Lange described her zeal with the aesthetics of words – the tangled letters and stiff downstrokes of ls and ts

a thought: many passages dealt strikingly well with the weird unpredictability of responses to trauma, such as how she feared smiling when confronting harrowing moments

a fact: Lange was a key figure in the Argentine avant-garde of the 1920s/30s, and this 1937 memoir was her first major success

want to read Notes from Childhood? visit here

Feebleminded by Ariana Harwicz (tr. Annie McDermott & Carolina Orloff)

a nutshell: this is breathless, bewildering, bestial fiction streaming from the pulsating mind of a young woman near-delirious with lust & frustration

a line: “I’m thinning out, becoming just an idea”
a bonus line: “I despise this life where in the kitchen at a certain time of day the water starts to boil” (I couldn’t choose just one; almost every line kicks like a neckful of Fernet)

an image: the narrator’s imaginings /recollections?/ of her mother’s sexual exploits are intensely disturbing – the volatile, perverse mother-daughter dynamic is the novel’s nucleus

a thought: I’ll be processing my 1000s of thoughts on Harwicz’s incendiary writing for some time! for now: one of the things that interested me a lot was the degree to which she pushed me to question what I’m willing to believe from the narrator – I closed the book with no idea how much was delusion/dream/reality

a fact: the novel is currently being adapted for the stage in Argentina, which I find a very curious prospect… I’ll be watching that space!

want to read Feebleminded? visit here

[PS. big thanks to Charco Press for the copy!]

The Wind That Lays Waste by Selva Almada (tr. Chris Andrews)

a nutshell: this highly charged, palpable prose is ignited by the sparks thrown off a heady encounter between a preacher, his daughter, a mechanic and his assistant in the wilds of northern Argentina

a line: “But Leni has no lost paradise to revisit. Her childhood was very recent but her memory of it was empty.”

an image: I found the omniscient narrator’s passage about the reverend’s sermons deeply unsettling, with the escalating intrusions of Christ’s tongue, finger, tongue until the climactic disgorging of the slimy black Devil-infused fabric

a thought: through its potency, this story carried me into a world profoundly different to the one I inhabit – immersing me for several hours in belief systems & ways of life so far from my own (a very useful exercise given how much time I spend in a filter bubble)

a fact: according to a 2017 survey, 76% of Argentina’s population is Christian – 66% Roman Catholic, 10% Evangelical Protestant; last year’s failure of the bill to legalise abortion highlighted the enduring power of the church in Argentinian politics

want to read The Wind That Lays Waste? visit here

[PS. big thanks to Charco Press for the copy!]

The German Room by Carla Maliandi (tr. Frances Riddle)

a nutshell: on stumbling into a personal crossroads, a woman impulsively leaves Buenos Aires for Heidelberg – the city in which she spent her first five years – where her world widens into an unscripted, impassioned realm

a line: “Something suddenly became clear to me: I don’t want to buy a set of coffee mugs ever again, or straighten pictures on the wall, or decide where to put the rug that looks rustic but isn’t … I’d rather be surprised when I open the window”

an image: the final scene (which of course will remain a mystery here) is misty, fragile, exquisite – it veers nebulously towards the magical realism melded into much of South America’s literature

a thought: this was the second book by an Argentinian author that I read this week (the other was Norah Lange’s People in the Room, tr. Charlotte Whittle, And Other Stories); I hadn’t decided in advance which I’d review but chose The German Room for several reasons incl. (i) it had me far more engaged (ii) though the action takes place in Germany, its characters have a deep, fascinating relationship with Argentina as a country, (iii) Maliandi’s beautiful writing deserves to be shared

a fact: the book’s narrator has parallels with the author’s own life – she too is the daughter of philosophers who escaped Argentina’s military regime (though Maliandi’s parents took refuge in Venezuela rather than Germany)

* a bonus fact: film rights have apparently been sold to award-winning filmmaker Diego Lerman *

want to read The German Room? visit here