{"product_id":"austral-9781529422610","title":"Austral","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003eA novel by Aliza Abravanel that explores the painful irony of being alive, the loss of identity, and the search for meaning in the past and present. It follows three quests: an indigenous speaker facing the fading of his culture, an anthropologist trying to prevent it, and a survivor of the Guatemalan genocide seeking to recover memories lost after war. The novel also explores contemporary xenophobia and ecological and cultural destruction. \u003c\/blockquote\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFormat\u003c\/strong\u003e: Paperback \/ softback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLength\u003c\/strong\u003e: 224 pages\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublication date\u003c\/strong\u003e: 25 April 2024\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher\u003c\/strong\u003e: Quercus Publishing\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA tender and thoughtful exploration of the painful irony of being alive and our attempts to make sense of the past as well as the present. KATHARINA VOLCKMER, author of The Appointment, offers a reflection on identity, rootlessness, and violence, marking Fonseca's most ambitious, complex, and accomplished novel to date. JAVIER CERCAS, author of Soldiers of Salamis, praises the novel as beautifully knotted, unfolding with every traced layer of its deeply affecting narrative alongside a meditation on memory, mystery, and vanishing. Sebaldian in its turns, Austral is a novel of profound questions,GUY GUNARATNE, author of Mister, Mister, describes it as a dazzling novel about the traces we leave, the traces we erase, and the traces we seek to rebuild. In this innovative novel, three losses and three quests are pursued. English writer Aliza Abravanel, battling aphasia, attempts to finish her book. A last indigenous speaker confronts the fading of his culture and language, while an anthropologist struggles to prevent it. Through the construction of an esoteric theatre of memory, a survivor of the Guatemalan genocide of the 1970s and 80s seeks to recover the memories lost after the traumas of war. And behind these three threads lies the narrator's own story: Julio, a disillusioned university professor, must try to understand and complete his friend Aliza's novel and come to terms with a past he shared with her but has blanked for thirty years. From the Guatemalan wilderness to the high Peruvian Amazon, passing through Nueva Germania, the anti-Semitic commune founded in Paraguay by Nietzsche's sister, Austral takes us on a long journey south, following a trail of ecological and cultural destruction to excavate contemporary xenophobia. Reminiscent of the best of Bolaño, Borges, and C.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWeight\u003c\/strong\u003e: 162g\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDimension\u003c\/strong\u003e: 130 x 196 x 17 (mm)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eISBN-13\u003c\/strong\u003e: 9781529422610\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Carlos Fonseca","offers":[{"title":"Paperback \/ softback","offer_id":45796622303482,"sku":"9781529422610","price":8.04,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0522\/4297\/2845\/files\/1714133941644_book.jpg?v=1714208828","url":"https:\/\/shulphink.com\/products\/austral-9781529422610","provider":"Shulph Ink","version":"1.0","type":"link"}