Description
A mother and son inhabit an isolated and increasingly dangerous private world.
The third and final installment of Ariana Harwicz's "Involuntary Trilogy" finds us on familiar, disquieting ground. Under the spell of a mother's madness, the French countryside transforms into a dreamscape of interconnected imagery: animals, desire, the functions of the body. Most troublingly: the comfort of a teenage son. Scorning the bourgeois mores and conventionality of their small town, she withdraws him from school and the two embark on ever more antisocial and dangerous behavior. Harwicz is at her best here, building an interior world so robust, and so grotesque, that it eclipses our shared reality. Savage, and savagely funny, she leaves us singed, if not scorched.
About the Author
Compared to Nathalie Sarraute and Virginia Woolf, Ariana Harwicz is one of the most radical figures in contemporary Argentinian literature. Her prose is characterised by its violence, eroticism, irony and criticism of the clichés surrounding the notions of the family and conventional relationships. Born in Buenos Aires in 1977, Harwicz studied screenwriting and drama in Argentina, and earned a degree in Performing Arts from the University of Paris VII as well as a Master's in comparative literature from the Sorbonne. She has taught screenwriting and written plays, which have been staged in Buenos Aires. Feebleminded (which has also been adapted for the stage in Argentina and Spain) is her second novel and a sequel in an 'involuntary' trilogy, preceded by Die, My Love (Charco Press, 2017) and followed by Precocious. Her fourth novel, Degenerate comes out in June 2019. Die, My Love was longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize (2018) and shortlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize (2018). It has been translated into more than ten languages.Originally from Buenos Aires and now based in Edinburgh, Carolina Orloff is an experienced translator and researcher in Latin American literature. In 2016, after obtaining her PhD and working in the academic sector for several years, Carolina co-founded Charco Press where she acts as publishing director and main editor. She is also the co-translator of Ariana Harwicz's Die, My Love.Annie McDermott's published and forthcoming translations include Mario Levrero's Empty Words and The Luminous Novel (And Other Stories and Coffee House Press), Feebleminded by Ariana Harwicz (co-translation with Carolina Orloff, Charco Press) and City of Ulysses by Teolinda Gersão (co-translation with Jethro Soutar, Dalkey Archive Press). Her translations, reviews and essays have appeared in Granta, The White Review, World Literature Today, Asymptote, the Times Literary Supplement and LitHub, among others. Annie also edits books for Charco Press, including Julián Fuks' Resistance and Giuseppe Caputo's An Orphan World. Her translation of Almada's third novel, Brickmakers, will come out with Charco Press and Graywolf in 2021.
