Loquela - Softcover

Labbé, Carlos

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1940953243 ISBN 13: 9781940953243

Publisher: Open Letter, 2015

Synopsis

"[Labbé] wreaks havoc on narrative rules from the start and keeps doing it."—Bookforum

Loquela, Carlos Labbé's fourth novel and second to be translated into English, is a narrative chameleon, a shape-shifting exploration of fiction's possibilities.

At a basic level, this book is like a hybrid of Julio Cortázar and Paul Auster: a distorted detective novel, a love story, and a radical statement about narrative art. Behind the silence that unites and separates Carlos and Elisa, behind the game that estranges the albino girls, Alicia and Violeta, from the best summer afternoons, behind the destiny of Neutria—a city that disappears with childhood and returns with desire—and behind a literary move­ment that might be the ultimate vanguard while at the same time the greatest falsification, questions arise concerning who truly writes for whom in a novel—the author or the reader.

Through an array of voices, overlapping story­lines, a kaleidoscope of literary references, and a delirious prose, Labbé carves out a space for himself among such form-defying Latin American greats as Diamela Eltit, Juan Carlos Onetti, and Jorge Luis Borges.

Carlos Labbé, one of Granta's "Best Young Spanish-Language Novelists," was born in Chile and is the author of a collection of short stories and six novels, one of which, Navidad & Matanza, is available in English from Open Letter. In addition to his writings, he is a musician, and has released three albums.

Will Vanderhyden received an MA in literary translation from the University of Rochester.

About this title

About the Author

Carlos Labbé, one of Granta's "Best Young Spanish-Language Novelists," was born in Chile and is the author of a collection of short stories and six novels, one of which, Navidad & Matanza, is available in English from Open Letter. In addition to his writings he is a musician, and has released three albums.

Will Vanderhyden received an MA in Literary Translation from the University of Rochester. He has translated fiction by Carlos Labbé, Edgardo Cozarinsky, Alfredo Bryce Echenique, Juan Marsé, Rafael Sanchez Ferlosio, and Elvio Gandolfo.

Review

". . . [W]hat we encounter in Loquela is a skillful unmaking—complete with diary excerpts, missives from beyond the grave and an invented barn-burning manifesto on a literary movement, 'Corporalism,' which seeks to breathe life into the "corpse" of literature—that manages to offer new ways of thinking about what the novel can do."—Laird Hunt, L.A. Times

"[Loquela] is drenched in the spirit of experimentality, dry and absurd humor, strangeness and intrigue."—Simone Wolff, Bookslut

"Begins to fuck with your head from its very first word."—Toby Litt

"Navidad & Matanza could be the hallucinogenic amalgamation of a César Aira plot with setting and characters conceived by Bolańo if written using Oulipo-style constraints. . . . With ample imagination and commanding style, Navidad & Matanza certainly marks Labbé as a young author from whom we ought to anticipate great, fascinating things to come."—Jeremy Garber, Powell's Books

About this edition

• Publisher: Open Letter
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1940953243
• ISBN 13: 9781940953243
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 200