Bariloche - Andres Neuman

Bariloche by Andrés Neuman, translated by Robin Myers / ISBN 9781948830621 / 175-page paperback published in 2023 by Open Letter

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"The literature of the twenty-first century will belong to Neuman and a few of his blood brothers."—Roberto Bolaño

"Andrés Neuman has transcended the boundaries of geography, time, and language to become one of the most significant writers of the early twenty-first century."—Music & Literature

Demetrio Rota, a garbage collector from Buenos Aires, sleeps in the afternoons and assembles puzzles at night before leaving for work. His daily life is mediocre and he keeps his balance through sheer exhaustion. However, through the puzzles, Demetrio inspects and sorts through his own memories. At the end of the journey through his history, the present seems to devour him, until he’s left with only the emptiness of himself and his daily misery.

A parable of memory and deterioration, Andrés Neuman’s Bariloche juxtaposes the astonished memories of youth with a skeptical conscience; the impossible idealization of nature or first love with the moral and physical suffocation of the big city; being uprooted with returning to one’s origins, with a language fascinated by both lyricism and rottenness.

Andrés Neuman (1977) was selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelists and was included on the Bogotá-39 list. He is the author of numerous novels, short stories, poems, aphorisms, and travel books, including Traveler of the Century, Talking to Ourselves, The Thigs We Don’t Do, and Fracture. His works have been translated into twenty-two languages.