Fracture
Published on 11. June 2020
Book
Hardback
368 pages
978-1-78378-513-1 (ISBN)
Description
In 2011, Mr. Watanabe, a Japanese electronics executive, is in Tokyo when the earthquake that precedes the Fukushima nuclear disaster strikes. In the aftermath, he fins himself on a journey to Fukushima, a tourist of the current day tragedy that mimics his own experiences of World War II.
For Mr Watanabe is one of the few double hibakusha, a survivor of the atomic bombs dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The earthquake shifts his and others memories of those events. Meanwhile, four women based in Paris, New York, Buenos Aires, and Madrid tell their own stories of knowing and loving Mr Watanabe, a victim of one of the largest collective traumas of the last century.
A sweeping novel written with intimacy and compassion, Fracture encompasses some of the most urgent political, social and environmental questions of contemporary life, about collective trauma, memory and love. Already a sensation in Spain, it is major work of imagination from the prize-winning and highly acclaimed Argentinian author.
For Mr Watanabe is one of the few double hibakusha, a survivor of the atomic bombs dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The earthquake shifts his and others memories of those events. Meanwhile, four women based in Paris, New York, Buenos Aires, and Madrid tell their own stories of knowing and loving Mr Watanabe, a victim of one of the largest collective traumas of the last century.
A sweeping novel written with intimacy and compassion, Fracture encompasses some of the most urgent political, social and environmental questions of contemporary life, about collective trauma, memory and love. Already a sensation in Spain, it is major work of imagination from the prize-winning and highly acclaimed Argentinian author.
Reviews / Votes
This book's beautiful, gold-fissured jacket, designed by Jamie Keenan, pays tribute to [kintsugi]... Nick Caistor and Lorenza Garcia have produced a supremely elegant translation... There are fascinating disquisitions here into cultural difference, language, illness, fear and grief * TLS * Traversing languages and cultures, decades and generations, Fracture unites its many fragments to form a powerful and redemptive vision of a single, and unbroken, human life. A searching, humane, and vital novel -- Eleanor Catton One of the things I love about Andres Neuman's work is how he restores writing as the most powerful source of knowledge. This dazzling and devastating novel is a terrific demonstration of that -- Alejandro Zambra It is impossible to classify Andres Neuman: each of his books is a new language adventure, guided by the intelligence and the pleasure of words. He never ceases to surprise us and is, doubtlessly, one of the most daring writers in Latin American literature, willing to change, challenge and explore, always with a unique elegance -- Mariana Enriquez Andres Neuman is a born storyteller. Fracture is a deeply generous, wise and resonant novel that glides effortlessly between the intimate and the global, the tragic and the comic, all underpinned by Neuman's electric, ludic intelligence. If you are about to turn the first page, you are very lucky - a reader on the threshold of a book that in the most wonderful of ways will enrich and enlarge your life -- Owen Sheers Neuman's striking novel weaves a tapestry of life and society since Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed, as told through the story of the wanderer and electronics executive Mr. Watanabe, the legacy of his childhood trauma, and the women around the globe who loved him. Rich in detail, political as well as personal, from the foibles of language to economic decline, the world the characters inhabit is constantly shifting underfoot, and the act of remembering emerges as a shore on which to stand and face the sands of time. A finely wrought, beautifully translated novel' -- Saskia Vogel Fracture is a big novel... with an impressive variety of styles and voices...beautifully written... a powerful, absorbing work * Tony's Reading List * Fascinating ... An ambitious book, written with flair, wit and elegance, it's a masterful tale of personal and communal catastrophes that even so being a sense of hope in uncertain times * Morning Star *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 135 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
448 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78378-513-1 (9781783785131)
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 Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Persons
Andres Neuman's Fracture was shortlisted for the Premio Dulce Chacon and the Premio San Clemente Rosalia-Abanca, and is on the shortlist for the Premio Gregor von Rizzori. His novel Traveller of the Century (2012) (El Viajero Del Siglo) won the Alfaguara Prize and the National Critics Prize, and was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Talking to Ourselves (2014) (Hablar Solos) was longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award and shortlisted for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize. Neuman was named one of the original Bogota39 and one of Granta's Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelists. He was born in Buenos Aires and now lives in Granada, Spain.