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Gallardo
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Land of Smoke
by Sara Gallardo
(Pushkin Press, £12)
TO READ this collection of masterfully crafted short stories by Sara Gallardo, first published in 1977 and now translated for the first time into English by Jessica Sequeira, is to be immersed in a dazzling and at times hallucinatory world.
[[{"fid":"1434","view_mode":"inlineright","fields":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false}},"attributes":{"class":"media-element file-inlineright","data-delta":"1"},"link_text":null}]]Gallardo, scion of a patrician family of Spanish origin in Argentina, was a descendant of Bartolome Mitre, President of Argentina from 1862 to 1868, and the name of her grandfather Angel Gallardo, a civil engineer, scientist and politician, now adorns a busy subway station in Buenos Aires.
In contrast with her illustrious ancestors, Gallardo became an unconventional and audacious figure and was a much-coveted author during the 1960s and 1970s in Argentina. She died at the relatively young age of 56 in 1988, by which time she had made a name for herself as a writer and journalist.
More from this author
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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