Juan José Saer
Список книг автора Juan José Saer
Las nubes
Las nubes narra la historia de un joven psiquiatra que, en 1804, conduce a cinco locos hacia una clínica, viajando desde Santa Fe a Buenos Aires. Con él va una caravana de treinta y seis personas: locos, prostitutas, gauchos y una escolta de soldados, que atraviesan la pampa sorteando todo tipo de obstáculos. En esta falsa epopeya, que se desarrolla en el infinito escenario de la llanura ante la mirada científica del joven doctor, Juan José Saer concentra los núcleos básicos de su escritura: sus ideas acerca del tiempo, el espacio, la historia y la poca fiabilidad de los instrumentos con que contamos -conciencia y memoria- para aprehender la realidad.
The Clouds
"Saer is one of the best writers of today in any language."—Ricardo Piglia"What Saer presents marvelously is the experience of reality, and the characters' attempts to write their own narratives within its excess."—[i]BookforumIn modern-day Paris, Pichón Garay receives a computer disk containing a manuscript—which might be fictional, or could be a memoir—by Doctor Real, a nineteenth-century physician tasked with leading a group of five mental patients on a trip to a recently constructed asylum. Their trip, which ends in disaster and fire, is a brilliant tragicomedy thanks to the various insanities of the patients, among whom is a delusional man who greatly over-estimates his own importance and a nymphomaniac nun who tricks everyone—even the other patients—into sleeping with her. Fascinating as a faux historical novel and written in Saer's typically gorgeous, Proustian style, [i]The Clouds can be read as a metaphor for exile—a huge theme for Saer and a lot of Argentine writers—as well as an examination of madness. [b]Juan José Saer was the leading Argentinian writer of the post-Borges generation. The author of numerous novels and short-story collections (including [i]Scars and [i]La Grande), Saer was awarded Spain's prestigious Nadal Prize in 1987 for [i]The Event. Five of his novels are available from Open Letter Books. [b]Hilary Vaughn Dobel has an MFA in poetry and translation from Columbia University. She is the author of two manuscripts and, in addition to Saer, she has translated work by Carlos Pintado.
The One Before
"The most important Argentinian writer since Borges."— The Independent The One Before is a triptych of sorts, consisting of a series of short pieces—called «Arguments»—and two longer stories—"Half-Erased" and «The One Before»—all of which revolve around the ideas of exile and memory.Many of the characters who populate Juan José Saer's other novels appear here, including Tomatis, Ángel Leto, and Washington Noriega (who appear in La Grande , Scars , and The Sixty-Five Years of Washington , all of which are available from Open Letter). Saer's typical themes are on display in this collection as well, as is his idiosyncratic blend of philosophical ruminations and precise storytelling.From the story of the two characters who decide to bury a message in a bottle that simply says «MESSAGE,» to Pigeon Garay's attempt to avoid the rising tides and escape Argentina for Europe, The One Before evocatively introduces readers to Saer's world and gives the already indoctrinated new material about their favorite characters. 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 . Roanne Kantor is a doctoral student in comparative literature at the University of Texas at Austin. Her translation of The One Before won the 2009 Susan Sontag Prize for Translation. Her translations from Spanish have appeared in Little Star magazine, Two Lines , and Palabras Errantes .
The Sixty-Five Years of Washington
"With meticulous prose, rendered by Dolph's translation into propulsive English, Saer's The Sixty-Five Years of Washington captures the wilderness of human experience in all its variety."—New York Times[/i] It's October 1960, say, or 1961, in a seaside Argentinian city named Santa Fe, and The Mathematician—wealthy, elegant, educated, dressed from head to toe in white—is just back from a grand tour of Europe. He's on his way to drop off a press release about the trip to the papers when he runs into Ángel Leto, a relative newcomer to Santa Fe who does some accounting, but who this morning has decided to wander the town rather than go to work. One day soon, The Mathematician will disappear into exile after his wife's assassination, and Leto will vanish into the guerrilla underground, clutching his suicide pill like a talisman. But for now, they settle into a long conversation about the events of Washington Noriega's sixty-fifth birthday—a party neither of them attended. Saer's The Sixty-Five Years of Washington is simultaneously a brilliant comedy about memory, narrative, time, and death and a moving narrative about the lost generations of an Argentina that was perpetually on the verge of collapse. Juan José Saer[/b] 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. Steve Dolph[/b] is the founder of Calque, a journal of literature in translation. His translation of Juan José Saer's Scars was a finalist for the 2012 Best Translated Book Award.
Scars
"The most important Argentinian writer since Borges."—The Independent[/i] Juan José Saer's Scars explores a crime committed by Luis Fiore, a thirty-nine year old laborer who shot his wife twice in the face with a shotgun; or, rather, it explores the circumstances of four characters who have some connection to the crime: a young reporter, Ángel, who lives with his mother and works the courthouse beat; a dissolute attorney who clings to life only for his nightly baccarat game; a misanthropic and dwindling judge who's creating a superfluous translation of The Picture Dorian Gray ; and, finally, Luis Fiore himself, who, on May Day, went duck hunting with his wife, daughter, and a bottle of gin. Each of the stories in Scars explores a fragment in time—be it a day or several months—when the lives of these characters are altered, more or less, by a singular event. Originally published in 1969, Scars marked a watershed moment in Argentinian literature and has since become a modern classic of Latin American literature. Juan José Saer[/b] 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. Steve Dolph[/b] is the founder of Calque, a journal of literature in translation. His translation of Juan José Saer's Scars was a finalist for the 2012 Best Translated Book Award.
La Grande
"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[/i] Saer's final novel, La Grande, is the grand culmination of his life's work, bringing together themes and characters explored throughout his career, yet presenting them in a way that is beautifully unique, and a wonderful entry-point to his literary world. Moving between past and present, La Grande centers around two related stories: that of Gutiérrez, his sudden departure from Argentina 30 years before, and his equally mysterious return; and that of «precisionism,» a literary movement founded by a rather dangerous fraud. Dozens of characters populate these storylines, including Nula, the wine salesman, ladies' man, and part-time philosopher; Lucía, the woman he's lusted after for years; and Tomatis, a journalist whom Saer fans have encountered many times before. Written in Saer's trademark style, this lyrically gorgeous book—which touches on politics, artistic beliefs, illicit love affairs, and everything else that makes up life—ends with one of the greatest lines in all of literature: «With the rain came the fall, and with the fall, the time of the wine.» Juan José Saer[/b] (1937–2005), born in Santa Fé, Argentina, was the leading Argentinian writer of the post-Borges generation. In 1968, he moved to Paris and taught literature at the University of Rennes. The author of numerous novels and short-story collections (including Sixty-Five Years of Washington, Scars, The One Before, The Clouds, all being published by Open Letter), Saer was awarded Spain's prestigious Nadal Prize in 1987 for The Event. Steve Dolph[/b] is the founding editor of Calque, a journal of literature in translation. His translation of Saer's Scars was a finalist for the 2012 Best Translated Book Award. He lives in Philadelphia where he spends his summers rooting for the Phillies.
