The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Sebastian, Four Mothers, Restless, and The Most Precious of Cargoes
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Letters from Latin America Leo Boix: September 20, 2023
Reviews of a book of fiction by Colombian writer Margarita Garcia Robayo, a nouvelle by Argentinean author Sara Gallardo and a poetry collection by Argentinean-Spanish poet, novelist and musician Mariano Peyrou
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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
THE main protagonist in Margarita Garcia Robayo’s fast-paced novel The Delivery (Charco Press, £11.99) is a young Colombian woman writer living in Buenos Aires who often wears a T-shirt with the words “Rabid Fox” on it.
This is quite telling for a character who enjoys looking at half-finished and empty buildings, is despised by most of her neighbours for being “weird” and who thinks that families “are ambushes” and “flammable places.”
She will suddenly receive an enormous package from her sister that will eventually disrupt her daily life and will make a “fissure” in the real world. Robayo masterfully constructs a story of family ghosts and memories that put into question what it means to leave behind a country, family and friends for a new place.
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