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Southeaster

Southeaster

by Haroldo Conti (Author), Jon Lindsay Miles (Author)

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    Paperback 2015

    $3.35

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    Paperback 2015

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Synopsis

'Neither the old man nor Boga ever said more than was needed. And yet they understood each other perfectly.' Over the course of a season, Boga and the old man work side by side on the sandbanks of the Parana Delta, cutting reeds to sell to local basketweavers. But when the old man falls sick and dies, Boga abandons himself entirely to the river and the life of solitary drifting he has long yearned for. Echoes of John Berger sound throughout the evocative prose of this great Argentinian writer. A twentieth-century classic, Southeaster is a central work in Haroldo Conti's oeuvre.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 320
 Publisher: And Other Stories
Published: 06 Aug 2015
ISBN 10: 1908276606
ISBN 13: 9781908276605

Media Reviews
PRAISE FOR SOUTHEASTER: ------- 'Haroldo is a river, a delta with many streams that embrace the islands as they pass. His literature is directed at the solitude of others, and it brings a warm embrace, in the same way the river does.' Eduardo Galeano ------- 'The economy of his writing, impregnated with poetry and tenderness, is remarkable ... Don't be fooled by the story's initial, quasi-bucolic, calm. A dramatic crescendo leads to the final roar.' Maria Esther de Miguel, La Nacion ------- 'What a surprise and a treat. I was swept up in the great murky flow of it. Conti is a writer for whom place is character, not backdrop, and what a place, what a character. He's a revelation.' Tim Winton ------- 'Readers in English can at last immerse themselves in the subtle, beautifully wrought journey of the voyager ... Southeaster is one of the most original contributions to what Conti himself would term, in an interview in 1974, a stylistically and imaginatively Argentine literature .' Professor John King, School of Comparative American Studies, University of Warwick ------- 'Conti's work occurs at the point where landscape and human psychology meet and there's a soulfulness to his writing that I find deeply touching and nourishing. One of the best books published this year.' Foyle's Staff Picks ------- 'Southeaster is a meandering, estuarine version of a road novel, a watery Hemingway-meets-Camus tale of a loner exposed to the elements and in wordless search for some kind of purpose... sensuous and meticulously observed... a luminous and troubling South American classic.' Melissa Harrison, Financial Time ------- 'With his plain but indefatigably inventive descriptions, Conti conveys how the river always changes ... In long winding sentences full of alternately subordinating clauses, Conti slackens the narrative to match the river's pace... but Conti also knows how to make time buckle, and the last fifty pages ... are exhilarating.' Sophie Hughes, Times Literary Supplement ------- 'Southeaster is a particularly rich evocation of interiority ... organising a chaos of memories, observations, thoughts, and feelings into meaningfulness.' Jessica Sequeira, Boston Review ------- 'Despite the obvious romance of the delta, of Conti's strange, distorting setting, this is not a novel which romanticizes the lives of those who live in it. It leaves the reader with a savage beauty to contemplate, something contradictory, tense, and ultimately self-destructive in a way that seems to correspond with so much of Argentina's recent history.' 3am Magazine ------- 'Conti's frequent change of tense and the rhythm of his translated prose echo the ever-changing nature of the water itself... a beautifully written story.' We Love This Book ------- PRAISE FOR HAROLDO CONTI: -------- 'Haroldo Conti was one of the great Argentinian writers.' Gabriel Garcia Marquez ------- Haroldo Conti was one of Argentina's finest prose writers at the time he was disappeared by the military junta in the mid 1970s. He was fifty-one years old. This first publication of his work in English introduces us not only to one of South America's finest twentieth-century writers but to a world view, a landscape and a unique literary vision that is essential to our time.' John Burnside
Author Bio
Haroldo Conti was born in the province of Buenos Aires in 1925. He studied at a Salesian school and a Jesuit seminary before graduating with a degree in philosophy from the University of Buenos Aires. In his professional life, Conti was variously employed as an actor, bank clerk, Latin teacher and screenwriter. Conti was arrested in his apartment after the military coup of 1976, and is currently included on the list of permanently disappeared. After the publication of Southeaster in 1962, he went on to write three more novels as well as several short story collections. He is the recipient of several important literary prizes, including the Casa de las Americas Prize. --------- Jon Lindsay Miles works in southern Spain, also publishing as Immigrant Press. The translation of Conti's Southeaster (2013) followed a hybrid guide-novel of Ubeda (Along the Way. Walking in Ubeda, 2009) and a bilingual collection of mediated stories of migration (Desde las Americas a Jaen/From the Americas to Jaen, 2011). He pays for this life by teaching English conversation at an outpost of the University of Jaen.