The No1 Ethical retailer for Books, CD’s, DVD’s & Games
30 Day Refund Guarantee

The Sickness

The Sickness

by Alberto Barrera Tyszka (Author)

  • Used

    Hardcover 2010

    $3.25
Synopsis

Ernesto Duran is convinced he is sick. It becomes an obsession far exceeding hypochondria, and when Dr Andres Miranda gives up responding to his letters and e-mails, Duran resolves to stalk him. The fixation has its own creeping effect on Karina, the hospital secretary, who cannot resist becoming involved. Meanwhile Dr Miranda is coming to terms with a tragedy of his own: his father has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and yet the doctor - the son - finds it im-possible to tell him. He hopes that by taking his father on a trip to Isla Margarita, where they once went when he was a child, he might be able to reveal the truth. The nature of sickness as experienced by two individuals provides the backbone to this tender, thoughtful and refined novel. The Sickness is profound and philosophical, and yet written with an agility that expresses the tragedy, but also the comedy of life itself. A brilliantly achieved first novel.

$3.25

Save:$15.57 (83%)

Quantity

1 in stock

More Information

Format: Hardcover
 Pages: 160
 Publisher: MACLEHOSE PRESS
Published: 01 Jul 2010
ISBN 10: 1906694508
ISBN 13: 9781906694500
Prizes: Winner of Premio Herralde de Novela 2006.

Media Reviews
'A delicate piece of craftsmanship ... A small great work' Juan Carlos Palma, Mercurio. 'Driven by an urgent narrative pulse and a great fluency of style... it will touch the heart of many readers for its sensitive and balanced exposition of the fundamental problems of the human condition' Angel Basanta, El Mundo. 'A calmly paced novel unafraid to linger in scenes long enough to realize their potential, but never so long that they become tedious ... The Sickness is refreshingly clean in its storytelling yet very complex in character' Anthony Furey, Times Literary Supplement. 'Tyszka is a perceptive, original writer. He has brought an unusually sophisticated understanding to a wonderfully intense, little novel. No sentimentality, no polemic, just emotion at its most resonant' Eileen Battersby, Irish Times. 'This is a short, tersely written novel that distances and invades us at the same time. Powerful themes and powerful writing [does] not let you off or let you down' Susan Hill, Lady. 'Written in direct and lyrical prose, The Sickness promises to place Tyszka at the front rank of new Latin American writers, and, in its poignant dissection of middle-class malaise and familial dynamics, establishes him with a claim to be the Venezuelan Ian McEwan' Booktrust Translated Fiction. 'Tyszka's great skill is to evoke an emotional response from a series of lightly sketched but nonetheless highly believable epiphanies. Indeed, the characters here only grow through their burgeoning awareness of mortality, something which results in a story which is as true to death as it is to life' Val Nolan, Irish Examiner. 'As father and son go on holiday, the doctor's secretary has stories of her own to tell - as medicine, memory and fantasy join in a combustible mixture. In this coolly assured translation by Margaret Jull Costa, Tyszka's fable achieves an almost Coetzee-like level of resonant exactitude' Boyd Tonkin, Independent.
Author Bio
Alberto Barrera Tyszka, poet and novelist, is well known in Venezuela for his Sunday column in the newspaper El Nacional. He co-wrote the internationally bestselling and critically acclaimed Hugo Chavez (2007), the first biography of the Venezuelan president. The Sickness won the prestigious Premio Herralde. Margaret Jull Costa has translated many Portuguese, Spanish and Latin American writers, amongst them Jose Saramago, Mario de Sa-Carneiro and Jose Regio. She was joint-winner of the Portuguese Translation Prize in 1992, and won the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 1997.