Chilean Poet: A Novel Hardcover – February 15, 2022 by Alejandro Zambra

Description

Author: Zambra Alejandro

Color: White

Package Dimensions: 23x229x594

Number Of Pages: 368

Release Date: 15-02-2022

Details: Product Description
“A very funny, warm, and beautiful novel.” —Sheila Heti, author of Motherhood“Zambra’s books have long shown him to be a writer who, at the sentence level, is in a world all his own.” —Juan Vidal, NPR.org A writer of “startling talent” (The New York Times Book Review), Alejandro Zambra returns with his most substantial work yet: a story of fathers and sons, ambition and failure, and what it means to make a family

After a chance encounter at a Santiago nightclub, aspiring poet Gonzalo reunites with his first love, Carla. Though their desire for each other is still intact, much has changed: among other things, Carla now has a six-year-old son, Vicente. Soon the three form a happy sort-of family—a stepfamily, though no such word exists in their language.

Eventually, their ambitions pull the lovers in different directions—in Gonzalo’s case, all the way to New York. Though Gonzalo takes his books when he goes, still, Vicente inherits his ex-stepfather’s love of poetry. When, at eighteen, Vicente meets Pru, an American journalist literally and figuratively lost in Santiago, he encourages her to write about Chilean poets—not the famous, dead kind, your Nerudas or Mistrals or Bolaños, but rather the living, striving, everyday ones. Pru’s research leads her into this eccentric community—another kind of family, dysfunctional but ultimately loving. Will it also lead Vicente and Gonzalo back to each other?

In Chilean Poet, Alejandro Zambra chronicles with enormous tenderness and insight the small moments—sexy, absurd, painful, sweet, profound—that make up our personal histories. Exploring how we choose our families and how we betray them, and what it means to be a man in relationships—a partner, father, stepfather, teacher, lover, writer, and friend—it is a bold and brilliant new work by one of the most important writers of our time.
Review
“Every beat and pattern of being alive becomes revelatory and bright when narrated by Alejandro Zambra. He is a modern wonder.”
—Rivka Galchen, author of Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch

“His clever irony, his lighthearted yet powerful prose, his gift for capturing this life that passes through and yet still escapes us—everything Zambra has already put into practice in his novellas and short stories explodes with vitality in
Chilean Poet. Contemporary, beautiful, brilliant.”

—Samanta Schweblin, author of Fever Dream

“A playful, discursive novel about families, relationships, poetry, and how easily all three can come together or fall apart . . . [
Chilean Poet] renders both the small moments of literary striving and the everyday difficulties of being part of, and raising, a family with an insight that’s both cleareyed and tender.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“Intelligent and funny and moving and profound. . . It’s been a long time since I’ve laughed so hard or been so moved by a novel.”

—Rodrigo Fresán, Letras Libres

“Engaging . . . written with a simplicity and freedom . . . The final part is wonderful, almost miraculous, masterly.”

—Ignacio Echevarría, El Mundo

“
Chilean Poet reminds us, in sum, of ‘life’s complexity’…It has moved me and made me laugh a lot. This is a great Zambra.”

—Nadal Suau, El Mundo

“[An] intelligent and moving novel . . . jaunty and ironic but never lacking in tenderness.”

—Jorge Carrión, New York Times en Español, “Best Spanish-Language Books of 2020”

PRAISE FOR ALEJANDRO ZAMBRA

“The most talked-about writer to come out of Chile since Bolaño.”
—
The New York Times Book Review

“Zambra’s books have long shown him to be a writer who, at the sentence level, is in a world all his own.”
—
NPR.org

“Strikingly original.”

—James Wood, The New Yorker
“One of the most interesting writers working right now.”

—Elle.com

“When I read Zambra I feel like someone’s shooting fireworks inside my head.”

—Valeria Luiselli, author of Lost Children Archive

“Zambra is so alert to the intimate beauty and mystery of being alive that