The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Sebastian, Four Mothers, Restless, and The Most Precious of Cargoes
Latest editorial
Letters From Latin America
Review of fiction by Uruguayan writers Ida Vitale and Fernanda Trias
covers+
JOHN GREEN explores the argument that psychiatry needs to move away from the idea of just seeing and treating the individual
SYLVIA HIKINS applauds a polemic against “cleanfluencers” and considers radical alternatives to current inequalities of housework
RUTH AYLETT admires the blunt honesty with which a woman’s experience is recorded, but detects the unexamined privilege that underlies it
IAN SINCLAIR draws attention to the powerful role that literature plays in foreseeing the way humanity will deal with climate crisis
High quality pulp, rollicking online murders, Abnorman Britain, and high skates drama: reviews of The Get Off, Everyone In The Group Chat Dies, Pagans and First To Fall
DENNIS BROE notes what happens to content when the streaming giants incorporate AI and deregulation into their economic models
BYOBU (Charco Press, £9.99) is a puzzling book by the Uruguayan poet Ida Vitale (b1923), a member of the acclaimed Generation of ’45 and winner of one the most important literary distinctions in the Spanish language, the Cervantes Prize.
It is Vitale’s first book of prose to be published in English and has been superbly translated by Sean Manning. It could be read as an experimental novel, an essayistic notebook or as a series of concatenated aphorisms.
But it is also a book of poetry written in prose, where the main character, the elusive Byobu, navigates a tantalising world woven through by many strange and playful stories.
More from this author
A pamphlet by British Latinx poet Patrick Romero McCafferty, poetry by Anglo-Argentinian Miguel Cullen, and a book of conjuring poems by Mexican Pedro Serrano
LEO BOIX selects the best books of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction written by Latinx and Latin American authors published this year
Mexican Yuri Herrera’s novel about Benito Juarez in New Orleans, and poetry by Mexican Fabio Morabito and Argentine Sergio Chejfec
Femicide and the search for justice in Mexico: a book by Cristina Rivera Garza; and a travel book through Latin America by Welsh poet Richard Gwyn