In the heat of Barcelona beats the pulse of a new underclass. Once the bright future of Venezuela, a cohort disappeared after the country's surreal collapse. From savagery young lives emerge and take flight on a different continent: friends prevailing, there before the world but under its radar. Escaping hunger and worse in Caracas, they pedal the streets of a new city as fast-food delivery riders, prostitutes and dealers, scratching their living at speed. Navigating punishing hills and dark alleys at risk, they are visible in fleeting moments on a doorstep, a corner, or weaving through rush-hour traffic.
Savages to the local population, they become hypnotic fireflies here, discovering identity, surviving insult, questioning gender, finding love, trying to forget, or is it to remember, but alive and supporting each other through stories of fear, horror, laughter, and hope.
Maria Eugenia pedals eighty-four frenetic hours a week, her body broken and bleeding, rapid orders pushing through to her phone that rings nonstop. She has kept in touch with Cheo who looks forward to the arrival of his girlfriend from Venezuela, but he has yet to tell her he is married to Andres. Nataly has turned to prostitution only to fall in love with Sasha, her mysterious Russian client. Meanwhile, El Loco tries to establish his reputation as a drug dealer in Madrid on the back of a clouded past in Caracas where From Savagery opens in a funeral home, and at the very moment Angelica realises she can't afford her mother's burial.
This generation comes alive through its language; it is as distinct as the friendship shared-crackling, proud, and without apology, a gust of fresh air carrying with it the spirit of a new life.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
"From Savagery is not only a book, it's a global situation. . . Alejandra Banca is brave! . . . Some books sleep, others live, and others still create life." -Jan Queretz, Casapais.
"Banca's characters grab you by the heart and refuse to let you go. Visceral, unflinching, ferocious, unashamed-an important and much-needed entry to the world's literature." -Jade Song, author of Chlorine.
"From Savagery asks that we hold . . . the broken pieces of the mirror that used to reflect and contain, as an impossibly coherent whole, what it meant to be Venezuelan, and find in the pain of the thousand cuts the determination to do more than just survive and to be more than just ruins. A beautiful, devastating, and absolutely essential masterpiece."-Irina R. Troconis, Assistant Professor of Latin American Studies at Cornell University and author of the forthcoming book, The Necromantic State: Spectral Remains in the Afterglow of Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution
"From Savagery is an honest and delirious conversation between marginal and energetic characters, defeated but enthusiastic, ostracized but hopeful, crazed but determined to get ahead. Twelve round-trip stories, from here and from there . . . In these wild pages, Banca stirs the emotional memory of the immigrant, and among the tears, uncertainties, and concerns for subsistence, she finds traces of hope and tenderness."- Eduardo Sanchez Rugeles, author of The Lisbon Syndrome
Sprache
Verlagsort
Produkt-Hinweis
Maße
Höhe: 139 mm
Breite: 206 mm
Dicke: 28 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-1-7385220-4-0 (9781738522040)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Klassifikation
ALEJANDRA BANCA studied literature at Andres Bello University in Caracas. Fleeing Venezuela's collapse, she emigrated to Spain and lives in Barcelona where she worked in several cold sales and hospitality jobs before establishing herself as an English teacher. Banca's poetry has appeared in various anthologies. From Savagery is her first book and is the winner of a PEN Translates Award.
KATIE BROWN is a senior lecturer in Modern Languages at Exeter University. An expert on contemporary Latin American culture, she has appeared on BBC Radio 4's "Open Book" and is part of the women's UK, US, and Venezuelan translation collective, Colaboratorio Avila. Her translations appear regularly in the quarterly journal, Latin American Literature Today.
