The Garden of Secrets
ABOUT
THE BOOK
Twenty-eight storytellers, one for each letter in the Arabic alphabet, meet in a garden to tell the story of a poet, Eusebio, arrested in the early days of the Spanish Civil War. Eusebio, a friend of Garciá Lorca and his circle, had escaped assassination and fled to North Africa. Some tales embroider his shadowy life with stories that feature the pasha’s cook, the slave-market, Aysha and the stork .Others want to know if Eusebio betrayed his fascist friends by confessing in a show-trial or played the shadowy role of double agent. Is he Eugenio the World War Two black marketeer from Tangiers or Alphonse van Worden, supposed descendent of Count Potocki, doyen of Marrakesh queens with his Rolls, Philippines’ chauffeur and home showings of Mary Pickford movies? With answers that are violent, parodic and erotic, the storytellers question the nature of memory, history and myth.
ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Peter
Bush
Peter Bush is a translator. His first literary translation was Juan Goytisolo’s Forbidden Territory (North Point Press, 1989) and, to date, Bush has translated eleven other titles in Goytisolo’s bibliography, including The Marx Family Saga and Exiled from Almost Everywhere. He has translated many Catalan writers including Josep Pla, Mercè Rodoreda, Joan Sales, Najat El Hachmi and Teresa Solana. His most recent effort is A Film (3000 meters) by Víctor Català, the classic 1919 feminist novel set in Barcelona’s criminal underworld. Bush lives and works in Bristol.
Peter Bush is a translator. His first literary translation was Juan Goytisolo’s Forbidden Territory (North Point Press, 1989) and, to date, Bush has translated eleven other titles in Goytisolo’s bibliography, including The Marx Family Saga and Exiled from Almost Everywhere. He has translated many Catalan writers including Josep Pla, Mercè Rodoreda, Joan Sales, Najat El Hachmi and Teresa Solana. His most recent effort is A Film (3000 meters) by Víctor Català, the classic 1919 feminist novel set in Barcelona’s criminal underworld. Bush lives and works in Bristol.