Taming the Divine Heron

Taming the Divine Heron is a novel by Sergio Pitol that follows the semi-autobiographical story of a novelist working on his newest masterpiece. Pitol uses his vessel to praise his favorite authors, such as Bakhtin, Gogol, and Dante, and creates a love letter to literature from around the globe. The protagonist finds a muse in Marietta Karapetiz, whom he dubs Dante C. de la Estrella, and the two debate the literary greats. The novel houses history, hyperrealism, myth, folklore, and memoir, and Pitol appreciates the power of language.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 275 pages
Publication date: 28 December 2023
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing

The second novel in Pitol's Carnival trilogy, following The Love Parade, continues his daring, genre-melding, picaresque style. From the famous Mexican author, Sergio Pitol, comes his 1988 classic translated by George Henson. Taming the Divine Heron tells the semi-autobiographical story of a novelist working on his newest masterpiece. The protagonist struggles to tell the perfect story—his own imagined protagonists mere imitations of the likes of Lord Jim and Alyosha Karamazov. To help eradicate writers block, Pitol uses his vessel to praise his own favorite authors. Pitol applauds Bakhtin's world-building, Gogol's "carnivalesque [literary] breath," and Dante's dizzying intensity. The character finds a muse in Marietta Karapetiz, whom he aptly dubs Dante C. de la Estrella, and the two debate the literary greats.

As the pair attempts to pull from the techniques of the world's best writers, Pitol creates a love letter to literature from around the globe while simultaneously telling his own magical story. To quote Pitol's protagonist, "the quality of the story, its effects, its brilliance, its intensity, make the most absurd circumstances plausible."

Taming The Divine Heron, second in a trilogy including already-published The Love Parade (Deep Vellum, 2022), houses history, hyperrealism, myth, folklore, and memoir; to read Pitol is to appreciate the power of language.

Weight: 240g
Dimension: 215 x 140 x 14 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781646052769