Kirjahaku

LONGLISTED FOR THE QUEEN SOF A SPANISH INSTITUTE TRANSLATION PRIZEA masterful novel exploring womanhood, class, and tradition in 1950s ColombiaFrom her home in Paris, Lina recalls the story of three women whose lives unfold in the conservative city of Barranquilla in Colombia. Amid parties at the Country Club and strolls along the promenade in Puerto Colombia unfurls a story of sensuality suppressed by violence; a narrative of oppression in which Dora, Catalina, and Beatriz are victims of a patriarchy that is woven into the social fabric.In Lina's obsessive account of the past, this masterful novel transforms personal anecdotes into a profound panorama of Colombian society towards the end of the 1950s. From private memories to historical reality, the structure of this book is full of precision, poetry, and exile's insight.Standing above and apart from her contemporaries of the Latin American literary boom, Marvel Moreno narrates a reality that describes the private lives of the people of Barranquilla while offering a compelling perspective on the human condition."One of the hundred most influential women in the history of Colombia."--Cromos magazine

From her home in Paris, Lina recalls the story of three women whose lives unfold in the conservative city of Barranquilla in Colombia. Amongst parties at the Country Club and strolls along the promenade in Puerto Colombia, unfurls a story of sensuality supressed by violence; a narrative of oppression in which Dora, Catalina and Beatriz are victims of a patriarchal system living in and among the fragile threads of the fabric of society. In Lina’s obsessive recounting of the past, this masterful novel transforms anecdotes of a life into an absolute view of the world, a profound panorama of Colombian society towards the end of the 50s. Written from personal memories and historical research, this is a novel that is both precise and poetic, a novel that immortalises—from the distant perspective of its narrator—the events that took place in a small seaside town. Distancing herself from her contemporaries of the Latin-American literary boom with a boldly feminist narrative, Marvel Moreno has created a world that both mirrors the close-up, private lives of the people of Barranquilla and the human condition itself. *WHAT NETGALLEY READERS ARE SAYING* "Just delightful." "Full of a fierce fightback against generations of misogyny and toxic masculinity. This book is powerful." "A wonderfully written and sensually feminist novel." "I'd read Moreno again like a shot." "There's something deliciously unexpected, even subversive about Moreno's prose."