Not a River
2025 Longlist

Not a River

Translated from the Spanish
artwork-image

ABOUT
THE BOOK

Three men go out fishing, returning to a favourite spot on the river despite their memories of a terrible accident there years earlier. As a long, sultry day passes, they drink and cook and talk and dance, and try to overcome the ghosts of their past. But they are outsiders, and this moment also puts them at odds with the inhabitants of this watery universe, both human and otherwise. The forest presses close, and violence seems inevitable, but can another tragedy be avoided?

ABOUT
THE AUTHOR Selva
Almada

Compared to Carson McCullers, William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor, Selva Almada (Argentina, 1973) is considered one of the most powerful voices in contemporary Latin American literature. She has published several novels, a book of short stories, a book of journalistic fiction and a film diary. She has been finalist for the International Booker Prize, the Medifé Prize, the Vargas Llosa Prize for Novels, the Rodolfo Walsh Award and of Tigre Juan Award. Her debut novel in English, The Wind that Lays Waste, won the EIBF First Book Award (2019), and Not a River was shortlisted for the Booker International Prize.

Compared to Carson McCullers, William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor, Selva Almada (Argentina, 1973) is considered one of the most powerful voices in contemporary Latin American literature. She has published several novels, a book of short stories, a book of journalistic fiction and a film diary. She has been finalist for the International Booker Prize, the Medifé Prize, the Vargas Llosa Prize for Novels, the Rodolfo Walsh Award and of Tigre Juan Award. Her debut novel in English, The Wind that Lays Waste, won the EIBF First Book Award (2019), and Not a River was shortlisted for the Booker International Prize.

ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Annie
McDermott

Annie McDermott is the translator of a dozen books from Spanish and Portuguese, by such writers as Mario Levrero, Ariana Harwicz, Brenda Lozano, Fernanda Trías and Lídia Jorge. She was awarded the Premio Valle-Inclán for her translation of Wars of the Interior by Joseph Zárate, and her translation of Brickmakers by Selva Almada was shortlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation. In 2024 her translation of Selva Almada’s novel Not a River was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize. She has previously lived in Mexico City and São Paulo, and is now based in Hastings in the UK.

Annie McDermott is the translator of a dozen books from Spanish and Portuguese, by such writers as Mario Levrero, Ariana Harwicz, Brenda Lozano, Fernanda Trías and Lídia Jorge. She was awarded the Premio Valle-Inclán for her translation of Wars of the Interior by Joseph Zárate, and her translation of Brickmakers by Selva Almada was shortlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation. In 2024 her translation of Selva Almada’s novel Not a River was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize. She has previously lived in Mexico City and São Paulo, and is now based in Hastings in the UK.

NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS

The regional language paints landscapes, characters and scenarios full of life. The narrative is simple but dynamic enough to transmit intensely the sense of conflict and despair. The author comments on masculinity and on how men’s conflicts often have wide cruel implications for those around them. The relation humans-nature is also explored in a way that reminds us of Horacio Quiroga, but in Almada’s story the cruelty of men surpasses the hostility of nature.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Date published
23/01/2024
Country
Argentina
Original Language
Spanish
Author
Publisher
Charco Press
Translator
Annie McDermott
Translation
Translated from the Spanish
Borrow this book from Libraries Ireland

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