In a gripping, atmospheric new novel by acclaimed Mexican writer Daniel Saldana Paris, three friends forever bound by erotic flames of the past reunite in a city engulfed by wildfires and an ecstatic dancing plague.
After years apart, three high school friends return to Cuernavaca, Mexico, where an intense love triangle once left an indelible mark on their adolescence. The city, surrounded by a ring of claustrophobic wildfires, brings out the past and confronts them with their present: they must once again face the entanglement of friendship and desire, the seemingly distant discovery of sexuality, complex parental relationships, and the daunting task of artistic fulfilment.
In the background, two forces of chaos and destruction are a constant presence. As fires ravage the physical landscape, one of the friends begins choreographing an ecstatic dance inspired by the German expressionist Mary Wigman and medieval Danse Macabre. What starts as a coping mechanism for the anxieties of youth and climate catastrophe becomes an overpowering, all-consuming hysteria. Mysterious powers are awakened, the boundary between reality and myth begins to blur, and the friends find themselves immersed in an increasingly turbulent and uncertain universe.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
"In the evocative latest from Saldana Paris (Planes Flying over a Monster), a choreographer's visionary project shakes a Mexican city out of its collective slumber... Saldana Paris executes some spellbinding moves... This smoldering tale is worth a look." -Publishers Weekly
"Daniel Saldana Paris's new novel, The Dance and the Fire, has everything a reader could want: climate dystopia, hysterical dancing, and a long-standing love triangle . . . As the surrounding landscape succumbs, one friend seeks solace in dance. Inspired by German Expressionism and medieval danse macabre, the performance expands into something more intense than any of them anticipated, fracturing boundaries between the present world and the past, between myth and reality." -Vulture
"Poignant and compelling, this lyrical translation of Saldana Paris' depiction of youth foundering into maturity against the backdrop of chaos, hysteria, and destruction is a solid add for all literary collections." -Booklist
"Hallucinatory perception, the ephemeral nature of memory, and the intransience of art all come into play in this triptych of confessions from deepest Mexico. Here, Saldana Paris leans less on the tragicomedy of the human condition to craft something a little darker and meaner about damaged people turning their hurt inward." -Kirkus
"A kaleidoscopic, erudite, and sweepingly tender novel reminiscent of Sebald, if Sebald was on acid. The Dance and the Fire's power comes from the ambitious (yet brilliantly compacted) range of its themes-fatherhood, eros, art, judgment, personal and archival aporia-that culminate in a book as capacious, porous, and resonant as history itself." -Ocean Vuong , author of ON EARTH WE'RE BRIEFLY GORGEOUS
"An absorbing and alarming chimera of a novel in which past meets present, fantasy meets flesh, and individual malaise collides with the woes of a vast and unraveling society. Saldana Paris is a deft and clever storyteller." -C. Pam Zhang , author of LAND OF MILK AND HONEY
"The Dance and the Fire is a wonder, brimming with hypnotic prose, wildly vivid descriptions, and intimately-and intricately-drawn characters. It's as explosive as a wildfire, yet as precise and graceful as meticulously crafted choreography. All that remains is to dance." -Isaac Fitzgerald , author of DIRTBAG, MASSACHUSETTS
"The Dance and the Fire is exuberantly strange, dark, and comic; an enthralling ode to Cuernavaca and the modern rebirth of medieval choreomania, as well as a prophecy about what happens when the built-up dread of our world on fire begins to seep into the soul. Daniel Saldana Paris is an extraordinary talent, and his novel feels both urgent and true." -Lauren Groff , author of THE VASTER WILDS
"The Dance and the Fire seems to catch fire on every page, seems to burn with jungle and bromeliads: it is a combustible book that alights with visions and cruelty." -La Repubblica
"Saldana Paris' prose is subtle, and his intelligence diaphanous. But be aware: the characters and the stories that bring them together are ferocious." -Alvaro Enrigue , author of YOU DREAMED OF EMPIRES
"A stylistic force that, in dialogue with aesthetic and political commitment, elevates it as an imposing work." -Zenda
"The words of The Dance and the Fire creep up on the reader, leaving them feeling slightly unnerved. Humor contrasts with seriousness, although that seriousness, in the end, is all a performance: the fire, at turns hilarious, at turns rabid, of a- carnival." -Revista de la Universidad de Mexico
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Praise for Daniel Saldana Paris
Los Angeles Times , A Best Book of SummerW Magazine , A Best Book of SummerLibrary Journal , A Title to WatchLiterary Hub , A Most Anticipated Book of the YearOur Culture Magazine , A Most Anticipated Book of the Summer
Sprache
Verlagsort
Produkt-Hinweis
Illustrationen
Maße
Höhe: 198 mm
Breite: 129 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-917260-36-7 (9781917260367)
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
Daniel Saldana Paris is a poet, essayist and novelist born in Mexico City in 1984. He is considered to be one of the most important figures in contemporary Mexican literature. His debut novel Among Strange Victims (En medio de extranas victimas, 2013) was a finalist for the Best Translated Book Award and Ramifications (El nervio principal, 2018), his second novel, has brought him even more praise and admiration in Mexico and abroad. He has two poetry collections and his work has been included in several anthologies, including Mexico20: New Voices, Old Traditions (Pushkin Press, 2015). In 2017, he was chosen as one of the Hay Festival's Bogota39, a selection of the best Latin American writers under forty. He has been a writer in residence at the MacDowell Colony, Omi International Center for the Arts, MALBA and Banff Center.
Christina MacSweeney is an award-winning literary translator, working mainly in the areas of Latin American fiction, essays, poetry, and hybrid texts. She has translated works by such authors as Valeria Luiselli, Daniel Saldana Paris, Julian Herbert, Karla Suarez and Elvira Navarro. She has also contributed to anthologies of Latin American literature and published shorter translations, articles, interviews and collaborations on a wide variety of platforms. Her most recent translations are Jazmina Barrera's Cross-Stitch (shortlisted for the Queen Sofia Institute Translation Prize) and Clyo Mendoza's Fury. In 2024, she was granted a Sundial Literary Translation Award for her translation of Veronica Gerber Bicecci's The Company.
