The Rooftop - Softcover

Trķas, Fernanda

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1913867048 ISBN 13: 9781913867041

Publisher: Charco Press, 2021

Synopsis

In a rundown apartment building, in an unnamed city in Uruguay, a father and daughter close themselves off from the world.

"The world is this house," says Clara, and the rooftop becomes their last recess of freedom. A pet canary is their only witness. 

As Clara’s connection to the outside is stripped away―the neighbor who stops coming by, the lover whose existence is only known by a pregnancy―desperation and paranoia take hold. It's a stifling embrace, and we are there with her, our narrator, dreading what we know the future holds.

About this title

About the Authors

Considered to be one of the authors forming part of the 'new Latin American Boom’ of women writers, Fernanda Trķas (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 Trķas and Lķdia Jorge. She was awarded the Premio Valle-Inclįn for her translation of Wars of the Interior by Joseph Zįrate, 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 Sćo Paulo, and is now based in Hastings in the UK.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

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.

Edition details

• Publisher: Charco Press
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1913867048
• ISBN 13: 9781913867041
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 112