Human Matter: A Fiction (Latin American Literature in Translation) - Softcover

Rey Rosa, Rodrigo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1477316469 ISBN 13: 9781477316467

Publisher: University of Texas Press, 2019

Synopsis

More than a decade ago, novelist Rodrigo Rey Rosa made his first visit to the Historical Archive of the Guatemala National Police, where millions of previously hidden records were being cataloged, scanned, and eventually published online. Bringing to light detailed evidence of crimes against humanity, the Archive Recovery Project inspired Rey Rosa to craft a meta-novel that weaves the language of arrest records and surveillance reports with the contemporary journal entries of a novelist (named Rodrigo) who is attempting to synthesize the stories of political activists, indigenous people, and other women and men who became ensnared in a deadly web of state-sponsored terrorism.

When Rodrigo's access to the archive is suspended, he proceeds to the General Archives of Central America and the Library of Congress, also collaborating with the son of the Identification Bureau's former head in a relentless pursuit of understanding. Reminiscent of Roberto Bolaño's finely honed masterworks, Human Matter is both a tour de force of fiction and a sobering meditation on the realities of collective memory, raising timely questions about how our history is recorded and retold.

Originally published in Spanish in 2009, its success demanded a subsequent publication in June of 2017.

About this title

About the Author

Rodrigo Rey Rosa is the author of many acclaimed novels and short-story collections, among them Severina and La orilla africana (The African Shore). He is the recipient of one of Guatemala’s most distinguished literary prizes, the Miguel Ángel Asturias National Prize in Literature, as well as the prestigious José Donoso Prize. The film What Sebastian Dreamt-based on one of his novels-was featured at the Sundance Film Festival.

Review

"[Human Matter's] exploration of the history of violence and secrecy in Central America has obvious relevance to today's politics, but the tale of a writer trying to understand the truth behind the things he's seeing gives the novel a resounding, universal echo." (Vanity Fair 2019-06-07)

"Had Rey Rosa written a nonfiction account of what he learned from the missing-persons files [in the Historical Archive of the Guatemala National Police], it likely would have been gripping in its own right. Instead, Rey Rosa wrapped his real-life search in a fictionalized container, and the results are haunting and revelatory in ways that nonfiction couldn’t accomplish." (Bookforum 2019-07-10)

"Secrecy lies at the heart of the story, manifesting itself in many ways...Of a piece with the author's Dust on Her Tongue (1992) as an exploration of political violence and its troubling reverberations." (Kirkus 2019-03-31)

"Human Matter makes the non-Latin American reader ask herself things that she...would not have otherwise. It delicately illuminates some of the pressure points of Guatemalan intellectual history and introduces a number of roles that have obsessed the country: the Indian, the police officer, the informer, the turncoat." (3:AM Magazine 2019-05-08)

"Rey Rosa, a Guatemalan writer often compared to Roberto Bolano...was inspired to write a meta-novel about his experiences [visiting Guatemala's National Police archive] and the stories he uncovered. The result...reads like the journal of a heartbroken researcher who stumbles on the darkest truths about his native country." (Chicago Tribune 2019-05-17)

"Political violence in Guatemala—past and present—and how it filters into the life of one of its citizens drives this short, intense novel...By the end of this novel you feel glad to have come out on the other side and carry the hope that Rodrigo Rey Rosa, those close to him, and his fellow countrymen will do so, too." (New York Journal of Books 2019-05-28)

"Rodrigo Rey Rosa’s fiction veers from the surreal to the naturalistic to the speculative. In his newly-translated novel Human Matter, he opts for a foray into (recent) history: the novel was inspired by his visits to the Historical Archive of the Guatemala National Police, and the disquieting information he discovered there" (Vol. 1 Brooklyn 2019-05-30)

"Human Matter is no conventional thriller—Rey Rosa doesn’t stop sharpening the self-referential, autofictional knife long enough to cut that kind of drama. The drama, rather, subsists in the writer’s internal struggle to come to terms with the hideous history of a country he has always had the privilege to escape, but which is nevertheless his own." (Texas Observer 2019-06-17)

"Required reading for anyone who is interested in how we remember and record the events that so many of us call 'history.'" (Literary Hub 2019-07-08)

"A quite effective presentation of the near-recent Guatemalan conditions and circumstances, with the odd (im)balance of the near-normalcy of the everyday along with the ever-shifting and still ominous weight of a deeply-entrenched violent history." (The Complete Review 2019-07-14)

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1477316469
• ISBN 13: 9781477316467
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192