G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King: A Novel, 2019, 416 p.
A fantasy novel set at the Alhambra (Granada) during the last years of Moorish Spain…
The publisher’s summary can be found here; a quick search leads to reviews by NPR [at least if you live in the US], The New York Times [if you are registered], Kirkus Review [open access] and Los Angeles Review of Books [idem].
Maybe this book should be translated to Spanish…
SOURCE: Grove Atlantic (publisher)
Mario Vargas Llosa, Tiempos recios [Hard times], 2019, 352 p.
publisher’s summary:
Guatemala, 1954. The military coup, undertaken by Carlos Castillo Armas and sponsored by the US through the CIA , bring down the Jacobo Árbenz government. Behind this violent act there was a lie that passed by as truth and changed the development of Latin America: the accusation by the Eisenhower administration that Árbenz encouraged the entry of Soviet communism into the continent.
Tiempos recios is a story of international conspiracies and competing interests during the Cold War years, whose echos resonate into the present. An event that involved different countries and in which some of the executioners ended up turned victims of the same plot they had helped to built.
In this passionate novel, that connects with the acclaimed La Fiesta del Chivo [The Feast of the Goat; 2000], Mario Vargas Llosa merges reality with two fictions: that of the narrator who freely creates characters and situations, and that designed by those who wanted to control the politics and economics of a continent, manipulating its history.
There is a thorough Wikipedia article on the 1954 coup against the Guatemalan president; and an equally thorough one on the author himself.
The critics seem to like Vargas Llosa’s latest novel that illustrates the danger of “fake news,” and they call it “great.”
SOURCE: Alfaguara (Penguin Random House Spain; publisher); review by J.A. Oliver Ródenas, “Cultura/s,” La Vanguardia, Oct. 12, 2019.
Ruta Sepetys, The Fountains of Silence, 2019, 512 p.
There is more information on this young adult novel set in 1957 Madrid from the publisher, Penguin Random House.
The New York Times books’ section offers a review to registered readers.
The daily El País narrates it as a big commercial success for the publisher Planeta that they can award their big literary prizes to two well-known authors who before had been published by their biggest competitor for hegemony on the world-wide market for books in Spanish, Penguin Random House.
The good news for the reader is that –in contrast to previous editions– this year’s prizes have been awarded to “serious” writers, recognized by the critics and the reading public alike.
The Planeta 2019 went to Javier Cercas for Terra Alta [“High Earth, Highlands” – a county in Southern Catalonia],
a story set in contemporary Catalonia, with the independence movement’s so-called “process” in the background, and with a protagonist called Melchor Marín, a former criminal and inmate, hero of the jihadist attacks in Cambrils in 2017, and a Mosso d’Esquadra policeman in Gandesa [capital of Terra Alta, Tarragona]. He needs to solve a triple murder. Cercas starts with this novel a crime series which will keep him for a time with the new publisher.
The still considerable prize money for runner-up [150,000 €] went to Manuel Vilas for Alegría [Joy],
which looks like a sequel to his bestselling Ordesa, i.e. an autobiographic book in which the narrator’s voice, a middle-aged writer, laments the passage of time and the loss of his loved ones, and tries to flee depression and be definitely happy. [El País]
There are older blog posts on books by Javier Cercas (2017, 2014, 2013) and Manuel Vilas (2018), and also on previous editions of the Planeta book prize: 2018, 2017, 2016, 2013.
SOURCE: article by Laura Fernández in El País, Oct. 16, 2019
The 2019 José Saramago prize, awarded by the Fundação Círculo de Leitores [readers’ circle foundation] and endowed with 25,000 €, went to Afonso Reis Cabral for his 2018 novel Pão de Açúcar [Sugar loaf; 264 p.].
publisher’s summary:
In February 2006, the Porto firefighters retrieved from the well of an abandoned premise a half-naked body with clear marks of aggression. The victim, who was sick and took refuge in that cave, had been beaten over several days by a group of teenagers, some of them only twelve years old. Rafa had found the place in one of his usual raids on the “dirty areas,” and that kind of building immediately piqued his interest. Then, torn between attraction and revulsion, he wondered if he should keep the secret to himself or share it with his friends. But what value has a treasure that cannot be shown?
A dizzying novel about a true affair that shook the country, a fascinating foray into the lives of a victim and his aggressors, Pão de Açúcar is a masterful combination of facts and fiction, with meticulously drawn real and imaginary characters that confirm the talent and the Afonso Reis Cabral’s literary maturity.
Afonso Reis Cabral (Lisboa, 1990) is a writer and publisher. His latest book is called Leva-me contigo [Take me with you; 2019] on a journey on foot from the north to the south of Portugal on the national road 2 (Wikipedia, Portuguese).
There is a 2014 post on Reis Cabral’s winning the Leya prize.
SOURCE: Diário de Notícias, Oct. 8, 2019; Leya (bookstore)
Liberisliber [“free book”] is an independent publisher’s festival held in the picturesque small town of Besalú, Girona. There is an official website in English (which is normally not the case with Spanish or Catalan bookfairs…). There you can find out more about the participants and the program… Following the culture news in general, one gets the (probably true) impression that the Spanish book market is totally dominated by labels belonging either to Penguin Random House or to Planeta.
SOURCE: liberisliber.com
literary rambles 