The Rooftop - Softcover

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

**Ida Vitale **(Uruguay, 1923) is a poet, translator, essayist, and literary critic. In 2018, she was just the fifth woman to receive the prestigious Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the highest recognition for literature in Spanish. In addition to the Cervantes Prize, she has also received the FIL Literature Prize (2018), Max Jacob Prize (2017), Federico García Lorca Poetry Prize (2016), Reina Sofía Poetry Prize (2015), Alfonse Reyes Prize (2014), and Octavio Paz Prize (2009), as well as many other honours, including being named by the BBC as one of the 100 most influential women of 2019.

**Sean Manning **is a literary translator and a Lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin. He has translated numerous literary texts including Spanish poet Azahara Palomeque’s _American Poems _(Coolgrove Press, 2020), Puerto Rican writer Eduardo Lalo’s The Elements, Uruguayan philosopher Carlos Pereda’s _Lessons in Exile _(Brill, 2018), and the work of Cuban writers Lorenzo García Vega and Ana Luz García. He is currently working on Carlos Pereda’s most recent book Destructions and Nomadic Thought; book-length works by Diego Vecchio and Lorenzo García Vega; and various texts by Ricardo Piglia, Ana Camblong, and Daniel Attala for a volume dedicated to the work of Argentine writer Macedonio Fernández.

Considered to be one of the authors forming part of the 'new Latin American Boom’ of women writers, Fernanda Trías (Uruguay, 1976) is without doubt one of the most prominent literary voices in today’s River Plate region and in all of Latin America. Her books have been published in Spain as well as in Colombia, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Mexico, and France.

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.

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If they came right now they’d find me face-up on the bed, in the same position I threw myself down in around midnight. Eleven thirty-eight, to be precise: the time when I took my last look at the clock and when everything came to an end. I gave Flor a kiss, told her to sleep tight and she closed her eyes as if it were a night like any other.The candle burnt out a while ago and now the darkness is swallowing the walls. It’s as if the whole world knew and was crouching down in wait, all because of me. I don’t know what time it is but the later it gets the less frightened I feel, and the less I feel anything at all. Whatever happens, they’ll have to break down the door, because I put the chain on and wedged the chest of drawers against it. Dad and Flor are in the other room and in a funny way they’re keeping each other company. Not me; I have no one, but I’m determined to stay awake as I wait.I hear a siren in the distance: an ambulance or a police car, I can never tell which. As it comes closer, my heart pounds in my chest. The sound turns shrill and leaves me dazed as it goes by under the window. Red light flashed onto the walls for an instant, like tiny flame-figures dancing in the air. Now the siren fades away and I’m back in the shadowy silence of the room. Alone. I have to convince myself that what’s in the other room isn’t a man, isn’t my dad. Tucked up side by side they looked like they were sleeping.It’s hard to believe I had a life before this one, a job, a house, which I now remember nothing about. For me, real life began with Julia’s death, went on for four years and came to an end today.