January - Softcover

Gallardo, Sara

 
9781953861641: January
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1953861644 ISBN 13: 9781953861641
Verlag: Archipelago, 2023

Inhaltsangabe

"Hair-raisingly good . . . the plot explodes."  – Lily Meyer, The New York Review of Books

“Elegant and forceful – I couldn’t put it down.”  – Catherine Lacey, author of Biography of X

** ONE of THE NEW YORKER'S BEST BOOKS OF 2023 **

A pioneering, revelatory masterpiece of modern literature that conjures the life of 16-year-old girl living on the Argentine pampas — now in English for the very first time

With echoes of Edith Wharton’s Summer, this radical feminist novel broke the silence around abortion to reshape the way women’s bodies and rights were perceived in 20th-century Argentina

Perfect for readers of Tove Ditlevsen, Annie Ernaux’s Happening, and Claudia Piñeiro’s Elena Knows

A radical feminist text, January was the first Argentine novel to represent rape from the survivor’s perspective and to explore the life-threatening risks pregnancy posed, in a society where abortion was both outlawed and taboo.

In the sweltering Argentine pampas, all things bow to Nefer. Reeds nod when she digs her heels into her horse, unripe peaches snap and fall as she gallops past. Sickly-sweet air bends, churns in Nefer’s throat. 

Nefer measures the distance between her body and the table, and feels something filling her up, turning against her. Her belly swells.

Desperate, Nefer visits a local medicine woman who is known to perform abortions but Nefer becomes too afraid to explain why she is truly there.

She attends confession at church but cannot confide in the priest. During a fierce argument with her mother, she finally blurts out her secret.

With a narcotic musicality and voice scorched through with honesty, Gallardo hangs before us an experience that has been lived and ignored a thousand times over. Nefer closes her eyes. We careen to her and we see.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Sara Gallardo was a celebrated Argentinian writer, born in Buenos Aires in 1931. Her debut, January, was published in 1958, and by the time she died in 1988, she had published more than a dozen novels, collections of short stories, children’s books, and essays. January received little critical attention when first released and remained out of print for decades before being recovered. It is now assigned reading in high school classrooms across Argentina.

Frances Riddle (translator) has translated numerous Spanish-language authors, including Isabel Allende, Claudia Piñeiro, Leila Guerriero, María Fernanda Ampuero, and Sara Gallardo. Originally from Houston, Texas, she lives in Buenos Aires.

Maureen Shaughnessy’s (translator) translations from Spanish include works by Hebe Uhart, Nora Lange, Margarita García Robayo, and Luis Nuño. Raised in Portland, she now lives in Bariloche, Argentina. Maureen's translation of Hebe Uhart’s The Scent of Buenos Aires was a finalist for the 2020 PEN Translation Prize.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

1

They talk about the harvest but they don’t know that by then there’ll be no turning back, Nefer thinks. Everyone here and everywhere else will know by then, and they won’t be able to stop talking about it. Her eyes cloud with worry and she slowly lowers her head as she herds a small flock of crumbs across the worn oilcloth. Her father mentions the harvest and then reaches for the tea towel used to wipe all the hands and mouths around the table. Her mother stands to pass it to him, stepping on the dog who yelps and takes refuge under the bench. Her shadow looms over the table as she moves past the lantern hung on the wall. The day will come when my belly starts to show, Nefer thinks. The insects buzz, flutter, and fall into the lantern. They climb back up, singe their wings and fall back down again. No one pays any attention to her, still and silent in the corner, as they lean over their plates eating and listening to the occasional exchange between Don Pedro and the Turk, who slurps a spoonful of soup, still out of breath from unhitching his horses.
            “Holsteins,” the Turk says. “About a hundred of them . . . Good-looking cows.”
            “Where did you say you passed them, Nemi?” Doña María asks.
            “Near the crossing. On their way to the market, I reckon . . .”
            “That’s right, the market’s tomorrow . . . But whose could they be? . . .  You don’t know, do you, Juan? Who was planning to sell cattle tomorrow?”
            Juan yawns, not hearing her as he stares into the lantern with bleary eyes.
            “Juan!”
            “Yes, ma’am!” Juan is new to the ranch’s outpost and doesn’t want to look dumb.
            “I was asking you who might be sending cattle to the market, the Turk saw some Holsteins . . .”
            Nefer measures the distance between her body and the table, thinking how before long she won’t be able to slip past and sit at the end of the bench. But by then I won’t be coming to meals. By then I might be dead. And she pictures herself surrounded by flowers and sad faces, and Negro leaning in the doorway with a serious expression, finally laying his eyes on her. But even then he’ll probably be looking at Alcira, she thinks, discouraged, and her desire to die fades as she watches her sister distractedly scratch her arm while she waits for the Turk to finish eating so she can clear his plate.
            Shadows dance along the rough wall and merge with the darkness of the roof where the thatch stretches out like hair. Alcira turns on the radio and tunes from station to station until stopping on a comedy show with a voice screeching in a fake Italian accent.
            Don Pedro resumes his conversation with the Turk, the radio like a waterfall drowning out their voices.
            “So, it was expensive, huh?”
            “Sure was, but like I said, if we get a good harvest it’ll be cheaper in the end . . .”
            The harvest, impossible for it to come without everyone knowing. A howl climbs up her throat, crashes against her teeth, then slides back down to where it came from. She longs for a moment of fresh air, to get out of this kitchen where the heat from the lantern laps at their faces and the air vibrates with the hum of the radio and Doña María laughs with Alcira at the actors’ jokes.
            But to leave she would first have to ask everyone else on the bench to stand, and also explain why she wants to go outside. No, better not to call attention to herself; maybe a sip of wine will make her feel better. She reaches for the bottle that Don Pedro has just set down, brings it to her lips and closes her eyes as she drinks. Then she pushes open the little window beside her and a waft of fresh air hits her face. She leans out to look for the lights of Santa Rosa Ranch in the distance, but all she can see is the foliage of a nearby tree.
            If only Negro knew that it’s his, that it’s his, then maybe he’d notice me, maybe he’d love me and marry me. Maybe the three of us could all ride off in a buggy to live the rest of our lives on another ranch, far away from here.
            But it’s not his . . . Yes, yes it is, it’s his . . . No, it’s not . . . But it is Negro’s fault, it’s definitely his fault. What’s a young woman to do? Out in the country all alone with nothing but the horizon. So wide and so green, the trains coming and going to who knows where. What can she do?
            It’s a different story for rich girls. She thinks of Luisa, who at this time of night must be sitting at the dining table in the estancia. Nefer’s mother once said, “Those girls are all the same, they can roll in the hay with whoever they like and no one will find out. They have their ways.” Is that true? But dear God, what about me? What have I done? Nothing, it was nothing, she hardly even remembers it. It was like a dream. But now, seated among all these carefree people living their lives, she feels only worry and fear.
            Because there’s no going back, time keeps passing and everything grows, and after growth comes death. But you can never go backwards.
            And Negro, when he finds out, when Edilia hears about it – that sharp tongue of hers, that laugh of hers – Negro might smile, might even make a joke . . . No, oh no, and it’s all his fault, it’s Negro’s fault, because she doesn’t even know how it happened, but it’s all Negro’s fault.
            She thinks about how she might have never even met him, and then it’s as if she’s been transported back to the day she first saw him. She feels the lightness in the air again, the fresh breeze. The entire family had gone to the rodeo because it had been a while since the prizes were so big. Her cousin, a pale, skinny, bowlegged fellow, had a good shot at winning. Nefer remembers squinting to see him mount his horse, then his body swaying in the saddle, one arm held up timidly in the air, too scared to crack the whip.
From behind her someone had said: “He’s gonna make off with quite a prize if he keeps whipping that horse so hard . . .”
            The joke was met with several laughs. Nefer, humiliated for her cousin’s sake, turned her head in contempt to confront the wisecracker, but...

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Verlag
Archipelago
Erscheinungsdatum
2023
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1953861644
ISBN 13 
9781953861641
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
114
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
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