From the author of the highly acclaimed Four by Four and Among the Hedges comes a collection of unsettling, captivating stories.
The eleven stories in this collection approach themes of childhood and adolescence, guilt and redemption, power and freedom. There are children who resist authority and experience the process of growing up with shock, and loneliness; alienated young girls whose rebellion lies under the surface—subterranean, furious and impotent; people who are tormented—or not—by regret and doubt, addicted to feelings of culpability; men who take advantage of women and adults who exercise power over children with a disturbing degree of control; kids abandoned by their parents; the suicide of the elderly and the young; lives that hide crimes—both real and imagined. Eschewing cosmopolitanism in favor of the micro-world of her characters, Mesa depicts a reality that is messy and disturbing, on even the smallest scale of an individual life, a single family.
O autorze
Frances Riddle is a literary translator, specializing in the translation of contemporary Latin American literature into English. She has a BA in Spanish literature and an MA in translation studies from the University of Buenos Aires. To date, she has translated half a dozen novels for leading translation houses such as New Directions Publishing, Dalkey Archive Press and Charco Press. She lives in Buenos Aires.