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Brickmakers

by Selva Almada

Translated from Spanish by Annie McDermott.

Published 2021

Paperback, 197 pages

Price: £9.99

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Synopsis

Pájaro Tamai and Marciano Miranda, two young men, are dying in a deserted amusement park. The story begins almost at its end, just a little after the two main characters have faced off in a knife fight: the culmination of a rivalry that has...

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Pájaro Tamai and Marciano Miranda, two young men, are dying in a deserted amusement park. The story begins almost at its end, just a little after the two main characters have faced off in a knife fight: the culmination of a rivalry that has pitted them against one another since childhood. The present in Brickmakers is a state of impending death, at moments marked by oneiric visions: Marciano is visited by the ghost of his father, who was murdered when he was a teenager, a father he had sworn to avenge, in a promise he could not keep. Pájaro is also visited, in a recurring nightmare, by his abusive father who disappeared years earlier.

Narrated with fury and passion, reminiscent of the pace in Faulkner and Hemingway’s prose, Almada’s second novel is a rural tragedy in the great American tradition, a story of love and violence where everything is put at stake. Continuing with the force and imagery of the filmic landscape of The Winds That Lays Waste, and the threatening atmosphere of Dead Girls, Brickmakers is yet another proof of Almada’s talent.

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  • Compared to Carson McCullers, William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor, Selva Almada (Entre Ríos, Argentina, 1973) is considered one of the most powerful voices in contemporary Latin American literature and one of the most influential feminist intellectuals in the region. She has published several novels, a book of short stories, a book of journalistic fiction and a film diary (written on the set of Lucrecia Martel’s film Zama ). She has been finalist for the Medifé Prize, the Vargas Llosa Prize for Novels, the Rodolfo Walsh Award and of Tigre Juan Award. Her debut in English was The Wind that Lays Waste (Winner of the EIBF First Book Award 2019), followed by Dead Girls (2020), Brickmakers (2021), and Not a River (winner of the IILA Prize in Italy).

  • What they do: ‘Charco Press focuses on finding outstanding contemporary Latin American literature and bringing it to new readers in the English-speaking world. We aim to act as a cultural and linguistic bridge for you to be able to...

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