Chilean Poet
A Novel
(Sprache: Englisch)
A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
A WALL STREET JOURNAL TOP 10 BOOK OF THE YEAR
ONE OF NPR’S “BOOKS WE LOVE”
“A tender and funny story about love, family and the peculiar position of being a stepparent…[Chilean Poet] broadens the author’s...
A WALL STREET JOURNAL TOP 10 BOOK OF THE YEAR
ONE OF NPR’S “BOOKS WE LOVE”
“A tender and funny story about love, family and the peculiar position of being a stepparent…[Chilean Poet] broadens the author’s...
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A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEARA WALL STREET JOURNAL TOP 10 BOOK OF THE YEAR
ONE OF NPR’S “BOOKS WE LOVE”
“A tender and funny story about love, family and the peculiar position of being a stepparent…[Chilean Poet] broadens the author’s scope and quite likely his international reputation.” —Los Angeles Times
“Zambra's books have long shown him to be a writer who, at the sentence level, is in a world all his own.” —Juan Vidal, NPR.org
A writer of “startling talent” (The New York Times Book Review), Alejandro Zambra returns with his most substantial work yet: a story of fathers and sons, ambition and failure, and what it means to make a family
After a chance encounter at a Santiago nightclub, aspiring poet Gonzalo reunites with his first love, Carla. Though their desire for each other is still intact, much has changed: among other things, Carla now has a six-year-old son, Vicente. Soon the three form a happy sort-of family—a stepfamily, though no such word exists in their language.
Eventually, their ambitions pull the lovers in different directions—in Gonzalo’s case, all the way to New York. Though Gonzalo takes his books when he goes, still, Vicente inherits his ex-stepfather’s love of poetry. When, at eighteen, Vicente meets Pru, an American journalist literally and figuratively lost in Santiago, he encourages her to write about Chilean poets—not the famous, dead kind, your Nerudas or Mistrals or Bolaños, but rather the living, striving, everyday ones. Pru’s research leads her into this eccentric community—another kind of family, dysfunctional but ultimately loving. Will it also lead Vicente and Gonzalo back to each other?
In Chilean Poet, Alejandro Zambra chronicles with enormous tenderness and insight the small moments—sexy, absurd, painful, sweet, profound—that make up our personal histories. Exploring how we choose our families and how we betray them, and what it means to be a man in
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relationships—a partner, father, stepfather, teacher, lover, writer, and friend—it is a bold and brilliant new work by one of the most important writers of our time.
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Lese-Probe zu „Chilean Poet “
Those were the days of apprehensive mothers, of taciturn fathers, and of burly older brothers, but they were also the days of blankets, of quilts, and of ponchos, and so no one thought it strange that Carla and Gonzalo would spend two or three hours every evening curled up on the sofa beneath a magnificent red poncho made of Chilo wool that, in the freezing winter of 1991, seemed like a basic necessity.In spite of all the obstacles, the poncho strategy allowed Carla and Gonzalo to do practically everything, except for the famous, the sacred, the much feared and longed-for penetration. Carla's mother's strategy, meanwhile, was to feign the absence of a strategy. At most she would occasionally ask them, trying to chip away at their confidence with almost imperceptible irony, if perhaps they weren't a little warmish, and they would reply in unison, their voices faltering like a couple of terrible acting students, that no, in fact, it really is freezing cold in here.
Then Carla's mother would disappear down the hall and turn her attention back to the TV drama she was watching in her room, on mute-the TV in the living room was loud enough, because Carla and Gonzalo were watching the same show, which they weren't all that interested in, but the unspoken rules of the game stipulated that they had to pay attention, if only so they could respond naturally to Carla's mother's comments when she reappeared in the living room, at uncertain and not necessarily frequent intervals, to arrange flowers in a vase or fold napkins or carry out some other task of questionable urgency. Then she would glance sidelong toward the sofa, not so much to look at them as to make them feel that she could see them, and she'd slip in phrases like, Well, she was pretty much asking for it, or That guy's a few cards short of a deck, and then Carla and Gonzalo, always in unison and scared stiff, practically naked under the poncho, would answer, Yeah, or
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Totally, or She's so in love.
Carla's intimidating older brother-who did not play rugby, but whose size and demeanor could easily have gotten him drafted to the national team-usually came home after midnight, and the rare times he arrived earlier he locked himself in his room to play Double Dragon, though there was still the risk he would come downstairs for a salami sandwich or a glass of Coke. Luckily, when that happened Carla and Gonzalo could count on the miraculous help of the staircase, in particular the second-or penultimate-step: from the moment they heard its strident creak until the instant the older brother landed in the living room exactly six seconds went by, which was long enough for them to get situated under the poncho so they looked like two innocent strangers weathering the cold together out of simple solidarity.
The futuristic theme song of the evening news marked, every night, the end of the session: the couple would go to the front yard and play out a passionate goodbye that sometimes coincided with the arrival of Carla's father, who would flash the Toyota's headlights and rev its engine, either as a greeting or as a threat.
"This little romance is lasting a bit too long, if you ask me," he would add with an arch of his eyebrow, if he was in a good mood.
The bus ride from La Reina to Plaza de Maip took over an hour, which Gonzalo spent reading, though it was hard in the dim light of the streetlamps, and sometimes he had to content himself with catching a glimpse of a poem when the bus stopped on an illuminated corner. He was scolded every night for coming home late, and every night Gonzalo swore, without the slightest intention of keeping his word, that from then on he would come home earlier. He went to sleep thinking about Carla, and when he couldnÕt sleep, as often happened, he thought about her and he masturbated.
To mastur
Carla's intimidating older brother-who did not play rugby, but whose size and demeanor could easily have gotten him drafted to the national team-usually came home after midnight, and the rare times he arrived earlier he locked himself in his room to play Double Dragon, though there was still the risk he would come downstairs for a salami sandwich or a glass of Coke. Luckily, when that happened Carla and Gonzalo could count on the miraculous help of the staircase, in particular the second-or penultimate-step: from the moment they heard its strident creak until the instant the older brother landed in the living room exactly six seconds went by, which was long enough for them to get situated under the poncho so they looked like two innocent strangers weathering the cold together out of simple solidarity.
The futuristic theme song of the evening news marked, every night, the end of the session: the couple would go to the front yard and play out a passionate goodbye that sometimes coincided with the arrival of Carla's father, who would flash the Toyota's headlights and rev its engine, either as a greeting or as a threat.
"This little romance is lasting a bit too long, if you ask me," he would add with an arch of his eyebrow, if he was in a good mood.
The bus ride from La Reina to Plaza de Maip took over an hour, which Gonzalo spent reading, though it was hard in the dim light of the streetlamps, and sometimes he had to content himself with catching a glimpse of a poem when the bus stopped on an illuminated corner. He was scolded every night for coming home late, and every night Gonzalo swore, without the slightest intention of keeping his word, that from then on he would come home earlier. He went to sleep thinking about Carla, and when he couldnÕt sleep, as often happened, he thought about her and he masturbated.
To mastur
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Autoren-Porträt von Alejandro Zambra
Alejandro Zambra is the author of ten books, including Multiple Choice; Bonsai; The Private Lives of Trees; and My Documents, a finalist for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. The recipient of numerous literary prizes, as well as a New York Public Library Cullman Center fellowship, his stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, and Harper’s Magazine, among other publications. He lives in Mexico City. Megan McDowell (translator) is the recipient of a 2020 Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and has been short- or long-listed four times for the International Booker Prize. She lives in Santiago, Chile.
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autor: Alejandro Zambra
- 2022, Internationale Ausgabe, 368 Seiten, 6 Schwarz-Weiß-Abbildungen, Maße: 15 x 22,7 cm, Kartoniert (TB), Englisch
- Übersetzer: Megan McDowell
- Verlag: Viking
- ISBN-10: 0593492501
- ISBN-13: 9780593492505
- Erscheinungsdatum: 11.02.2022
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
Chilean Poet complicates the notion of an artistic birthright rooted in national identity . . . [it] treats the thorny topic of collective identity not as tragedy, but as a familial comedy. Its laughs are forged across languages . . . [such] that one happily loses track of any original. New York Times Book Review
[Zambra] mix[es] tenderness, depth and laugh-out-loud humor . . . [his] incursions into metafiction, in which the author peeks in and winks at the reader, feel playful, serendipitous. He s clearly having fun.
Los Angeles Times
[A] splendid book . . . Chilean Poet moves deftly among different points of view . . . [Vicente's] complicated reunion with Gonzalo is one of the best endings to a novel that I have read in years, a scene of beautiful emotional improvisation.
Wall Street Journal
[A] charming novel.
The New Yorker
A fascinating portrait of a country at a turning point . . . It is a testament to Zambra s skill that I can so readily imagine the continuation of Vicente s life. It is also a testament to Chilean Poet s hopefulness, which, while cautious, runs so deep that the book seems almost to have predicted [Gabriel] Boric s victory.
The Atlantic
Zambra s fifth novel is in many ways a return to youth, the beauty, the unreliability, and the red-hot indignity of it . . . there are those signature Zambra sentences, those reckless, rambling sentences that proceed like sleepwalkers traversing the same crosswalk, heedless of traffic lights . . . this is fiction that provokes a need in you, a curiosity you wish to prolong by returning to it someday: crushing or euphoric emotions (love, regret, giving up, artistic passion) paired with everyday events (using a computer, quitting smoking) and packed in a miniature, highly constrained form . . . in many strange and enthralling ways [it] mature[s] as one reads it.
Bookforum
Hilarious, touching, and a
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phenomenal jumping off point for deepening your knowledge of Chilean poetry s varied, mercurial characters, Chilean Poet dives into what families are, fathers and sons, and literary pretensions.
Electric Lit
[H]eartfelt . . . Without a doubt, it is [Zambra's] best work yet, generously infused with nostalgic tenderness, original humor, and Zambraesque storytelling vitality. Only a writer like Zambra whose love for literature, insight into human vulnerability, and understanding of tumultuous history were expansively illustrated in his previous works could have written Chilean Poet . . . emotionally resonant . . . both Zambra s straightforward prose and his experimental poems all read naturally, thanks to McDowell s astute translation.
Asymptote
There are many joys of [Chilean Poet], including Zambra s fascinating depiction of the Chilean literary scene, a lot of (purposefully) bad poetry, and all of the stylistic inventiveness and wonder that Zambra and acclaimed translator Megan McDowell are known for. A tender and brilliant novel that surprises at every turn, Chilean Poet is a poignant examination of family and art.
Book Riot
The thing that has always made Zambra s writing irresistible (to me, anyway) is his attention to the seemingly inconsequential matters that render our lives so flush with consequence. Chilean Poet will almost certainly amble along Zambra s wonderfully original, laconic literary path.
Il'ja Ráko , The Millions
Zambra s novels remain clever and poetic, never too serious, always affirming. This quality could be described as warmth, but I will call it inclusivity: Zambra s novels will always accept us. They will not be bitter and they will not allow us to writhe in anguish. They will show us the pain of maturation and the pain of relationships, but they will lead us through these passages gently, with humor and compassion . . . Zambra ends novels better than anyone alive, and the ending to Chilean Poet is one of the most memorable a reader can experience.
Chicago Review of Books
Zambra has earned a reputation as an autofiction alchemist, an artist who does not simply notate the numbing details of daily life but spins the quotidian into art. In his latest novel, Chilean Poet, he writes in a different, grander register . . . we encounter scenarios that are recognizable because we have experienced them before, yet he depicts them with such care and irreverence that they are rendered unfamiliar.
Vulture
[A] brilliant poetical novel . . . [Zambra] brilliantly coax[es] his readers in each of the novel s four parts to believe his frequently hilarious tales . . . a novelistic epigone but primarily a charming, very rare, and disconcerting tribute to the poet s vocation; a poignant settling of scores.
World Literature Today
Megan McDowell has mastered [Zambra's] predominant tone of droll melancholy right along with him.
4Columns
Megan McDowell s ability to capture the novel s Chilenismos beyond the usual linguistic chasms between English and Spanish is a remarkable achievement . . . Zambra strikes a perfect balance of self-aware yet sincere. He reaches the sublime through descriptions of everyday routine. He never takes himself too seriously while acknowledging the gravity of introducing a child to the world in all its glorious contradictions . . . Chilean Poet takes readers on a courageous journey of invention.
PopMatters
A very funny, warm, and beautiful novel.
Sheila Heti, author of Pure Colour
Every beat and pattern of being alive becomes revelatory and bright when narrated by Alejandro Zambra. He is a modern wonder.
Rivka Galchen, author of Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch
His clever irony, his lighthearted yet powerful prose, his gift for capturing this life that passes through and yet still escapes us everything Zambra has already put into practice in his novellas and short stories explodes with vitality in Chilean Poet. Contemporary, beautiful, brilliant.
Samanta Schweblin, author of Fever Dream
A playful, discursive novel about families, relationships, poetry, and how easily all three can come together or fall apart . . . [Chilean Poet] renders both the small moments of literary striving and the everyday difficulties of being part of, and raising, a family with an insight that s both cleareyed and tender.
Kirkus Reviews
There s no questioning Zambra s deep affection for writers grasping at love.
Publishers Weekly
Intelligent and funny and moving and profound. . . It s been a long time since I ve laughed so hard or been so moved by a novel.
Rodrigo Fresán, Letras Libres
Engaging . . . written with a simplicity and freedom . . . The final part is wonderful, almost miraculous, masterly.
Ignacio Echevarría, El Mundo
Chilean Poet reminds us, in sum, of life s complexity It has moved me and made me laugh a lot. This is a great Zambra.
Nadal Suau, El Mundo
[An] intelligent and moving novel . . . jaunty and ironic but never lacking in tenderness.
Jorge Carrión, New York Times en Español, Best Spanish-Language Books of 2020
PRAISE FOR ALEJANDRO ZAMBRA
The most talked-about writer to come out of Chile since Bolaño.
The New York Times Book Review
Zambra's books have long shown him to be a writer who, at the sentence level, is in a world all his own.
NPR.org
Strikingly original.
James Wood, The New Yorker
One of the most interesting writers working right now.
Elle.com
When I read Zambra I feel like someone s shooting fireworks inside my head.
Valeria Luiselli, author of Lost Children Archive
Zambra is so alert to the intimate beauty and mystery of being alive that in his hands a raindrop would feel as wide as a world.
Anthony Marra, author of The Tsar of Love and Techno
Electric Lit
[H]eartfelt . . . Without a doubt, it is [Zambra's] best work yet, generously infused with nostalgic tenderness, original humor, and Zambraesque storytelling vitality. Only a writer like Zambra whose love for literature, insight into human vulnerability, and understanding of tumultuous history were expansively illustrated in his previous works could have written Chilean Poet . . . emotionally resonant . . . both Zambra s straightforward prose and his experimental poems all read naturally, thanks to McDowell s astute translation.
Asymptote
There are many joys of [Chilean Poet], including Zambra s fascinating depiction of the Chilean literary scene, a lot of (purposefully) bad poetry, and all of the stylistic inventiveness and wonder that Zambra and acclaimed translator Megan McDowell are known for. A tender and brilliant novel that surprises at every turn, Chilean Poet is a poignant examination of family and art.
Book Riot
The thing that has always made Zambra s writing irresistible (to me, anyway) is his attention to the seemingly inconsequential matters that render our lives so flush with consequence. Chilean Poet will almost certainly amble along Zambra s wonderfully original, laconic literary path.
Il'ja Ráko , The Millions
Zambra s novels remain clever and poetic, never too serious, always affirming. This quality could be described as warmth, but I will call it inclusivity: Zambra s novels will always accept us. They will not be bitter and they will not allow us to writhe in anguish. They will show us the pain of maturation and the pain of relationships, but they will lead us through these passages gently, with humor and compassion . . . Zambra ends novels better than anyone alive, and the ending to Chilean Poet is one of the most memorable a reader can experience.
Chicago Review of Books
Zambra has earned a reputation as an autofiction alchemist, an artist who does not simply notate the numbing details of daily life but spins the quotidian into art. In his latest novel, Chilean Poet, he writes in a different, grander register . . . we encounter scenarios that are recognizable because we have experienced them before, yet he depicts them with such care and irreverence that they are rendered unfamiliar.
Vulture
[A] brilliant poetical novel . . . [Zambra] brilliantly coax[es] his readers in each of the novel s four parts to believe his frequently hilarious tales . . . a novelistic epigone but primarily a charming, very rare, and disconcerting tribute to the poet s vocation; a poignant settling of scores.
World Literature Today
Megan McDowell has mastered [Zambra's] predominant tone of droll melancholy right along with him.
4Columns
Megan McDowell s ability to capture the novel s Chilenismos beyond the usual linguistic chasms between English and Spanish is a remarkable achievement . . . Zambra strikes a perfect balance of self-aware yet sincere. He reaches the sublime through descriptions of everyday routine. He never takes himself too seriously while acknowledging the gravity of introducing a child to the world in all its glorious contradictions . . . Chilean Poet takes readers on a courageous journey of invention.
PopMatters
A very funny, warm, and beautiful novel.
Sheila Heti, author of Pure Colour
Every beat and pattern of being alive becomes revelatory and bright when narrated by Alejandro Zambra. He is a modern wonder.
Rivka Galchen, author of Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch
His clever irony, his lighthearted yet powerful prose, his gift for capturing this life that passes through and yet still escapes us everything Zambra has already put into practice in his novellas and short stories explodes with vitality in Chilean Poet. Contemporary, beautiful, brilliant.
Samanta Schweblin, author of Fever Dream
A playful, discursive novel about families, relationships, poetry, and how easily all three can come together or fall apart . . . [Chilean Poet] renders both the small moments of literary striving and the everyday difficulties of being part of, and raising, a family with an insight that s both cleareyed and tender.
Kirkus Reviews
There s no questioning Zambra s deep affection for writers grasping at love.
Publishers Weekly
Intelligent and funny and moving and profound. . . It s been a long time since I ve laughed so hard or been so moved by a novel.
Rodrigo Fresán, Letras Libres
Engaging . . . written with a simplicity and freedom . . . The final part is wonderful, almost miraculous, masterly.
Ignacio Echevarría, El Mundo
Chilean Poet reminds us, in sum, of life s complexity It has moved me and made me laugh a lot. This is a great Zambra.
Nadal Suau, El Mundo
[An] intelligent and moving novel . . . jaunty and ironic but never lacking in tenderness.
Jorge Carrión, New York Times en Español, Best Spanish-Language Books of 2020
PRAISE FOR ALEJANDRO ZAMBRA
The most talked-about writer to come out of Chile since Bolaño.
The New York Times Book Review
Zambra's books have long shown him to be a writer who, at the sentence level, is in a world all his own.
NPR.org
Strikingly original.
James Wood, The New Yorker
One of the most interesting writers working right now.
Elle.com
When I read Zambra I feel like someone s shooting fireworks inside my head.
Valeria Luiselli, author of Lost Children Archive
Zambra is so alert to the intimate beauty and mystery of being alive that in his hands a raindrop would feel as wide as a world.
Anthony Marra, author of The Tsar of Love and Techno
... weniger
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