Kirjahaku

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR TRANSLATED LITERATURE Winner of the R mulo Gallego Prize, The Abyss is a caustic masterwork of incredible power and force, an unforgettable autobiographical work of queer fiction. The novel tells about the demise of a crumbling house in Medell n, Colombia. Fernando, a writer, visits his brother Dar o, who is dying of AIDS. Recounting their wild philandering and trying to come to terms with his beloved brother's inevitable death, Fernando rants against the political forces that cause so much suffering. Vallejo is the heir to C line, Thomas Paine, and Machado de Assis. He hurls vitriolic, savagely funny insults at his country ("I wipe my ass with the new Constitution of Colombia") and at his mother ("the Crazy Bitch") who has given birth to him and his many siblings. Within this firestorm of pain, Fernando manages to get across much beauty and truth: that all love is painful and washed in pure sorrow. He loves his sick brother and the family's Santa Anita farm (the lost paradise of his childhood where azaleas bloomed); and he even loves his country, now torn to shreds. Always, in this savage masterpiece about loss--as if in the eye of Vallejo's hurricane of talent--we are in the curiously comforting workings of memory and of the writing process itself, as, recollecting time, it offers immortality.

Una novela de Fernando Vallejo. «La Virgen de los Sicarios es una descarnada parodia de la violencia que afect a Medell n durante el auge del cartel dirigido por Pablo Escobar. Aqu Vallejo se representa como un anciano homosexual de conservadoras costumbres y de esp ritu elitista que se dedica a la gram tica y que regresa a su ciudad natal despu s de largos a os de exilio en busca de amantes adolescentes y en espera de la muerte. Con humor c ustico describe la ciudad y sus habitantes, nada escapa a su af n desacralizador y a su mirada critica. --Mar a Mercedes Jaramillo, Gaceta de Colombia ENGLISH DESCRIPTION "Our Lady of the Assassins is the most beautiful, delirious tribute to love and loss that literature has given us in a long while." -Le Figaro litt raire In the weakening of a society that has broken with its values and its past, in which hired assassins and hitmen are children, and in which impunity is the norm and violence the air that is breathed, through the crowded streets of Medell n, in a teeming crowd of the unemployed and panhandlers, of thieves and bandits, street vendors and cokeheads, walk the crazy (or lucid) narrator and his lover, a killer teenager, trying to make amends for one wrong with another. When nothing is left but to pray and sprinkle the bullets with holy water, the tiny church of Mar a Auxiliadora in the town of Sabaneta becomes a sanctuary for hitmen pilgrims and at the same time a focal point for this amazing novel.

Fernando Vallejo fortæller om sin brors eventyr som borgmester i Ta´mesis, en lille provinsby langt ude i Colombias bjerge der har samme navn som floden i London pa° spansk. Her vil alle underligt nok være lykkelige for enhver pris. Det lykkes selvfølgelig ikke for dem. Den enes lykke støder ind i den andens, og sammenstødet efterlader en stribe lig som forsvinder i den strømmende Ri´o Cauca. Det er nemlig en rigtig flod, noget helt andet end den sølle engelske a° der slæber sig søvnigt af sted. Romanen er en skarp satire over demokratiet, en cocktail af ha°b, løgne, genfærd, døde som stemmer na°r der er valg, og flokke af papegøjer som fortæller knivskarpe, evige sandheder. Pa° e´n gang et kærligt portræt og en sønderlemmende kritik af en uforglemmelig personlighed og hans folk.En fortælling forankret i en hjerteskærende virkelighed som flyder over med frihedstrang, humor, uforskammetheder og injurier. Hans anarkistiske forbandelser vækker mindelser om Céline. — Mario Vargas Llosa Vallejos prosa er fortættet. Den colombianske samfundsrevser maler en ætsende satire over provinsen og hele sit land i en bidende og uforsonlig stil der placerer ham i samme liga som Genet og Miller. — Michel Taille, Libération Hans eksplosive vrede er så klar, rungende, oprigtig, nogle gange morsom og næsten altid brutal at bogen er både fornøjelig og forfriskende læsning. — Pedro Almodóvar Vallejos prosa er vred, fordømmende og apokalyptisk, men midt i håbløsheden er der også glimt af dyb ømhed. — Judith Steiner, Les Inrockuptibles En stemme med forbavsende skævheder som minder om indtrykkene af Les Chants de Maldoror. — Claude Michel Cluny, Le Figaro Littéraire En suggestiv roman, en glødende hyldes til de idealister som stadig tror de kan forandre verden. — Jacques Sterchi, La Liberté