The Taiga Syndrome
ABOUT
THE BOOK
The Taiga Syndrome follows an unnamed Ex-Detective as she searches for a couple who has fled to the far reaches of the earth. A betrayed husband is convinced by a brief telegram that his second ex-wife wants him to track her down – that she wants to be found. He hires the Ex-Detective, who sets out with a translator into a snowy, hostile forest where strange things happen and translation betrays both sense and one’s senses. Tales of Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood haunt the Ex-Detective’s quest into a territory overrun with the primitive excesses of Capitalism accumulation and expulsion, corruption and cruelty – though the lessons of her journey are more experiential than moral: that just as love can fly away, sometimes unloving flies away as well.
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
This is a novel that invites to philosophical reflection, in as much it seeks ultimate explanations for apparently unjustified decisions. This detective story combines a simple plot, a complex narrative structure and fairy-tale references to ask what might be behind the contagious madness we human beings must cope with.
Rivera Garza’s work has been praised by Carlos Fuentes, and received the Anna Seghers Award for Latin American Literature (2005); the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Award (2001 and 2009); and more recently the Roger Caillois Award for Latin American Literature (2013). Biblioteca Daniel Cosío Villegas, Mexico