Jaguars Tomb

Product Description Jaguars' Tomb is a novel in three parts, written by three interconnected characters. Part one, "Hidden Variables" by María Celina Igarzábal, is narrated by Bruno Seguer. Seguer in turn is the author of the second part, "Recounting from Zero" ("Contar desde zero"), in which Evelynne Harrington, author of the third, is a central character. Harrington, finally, is the author of "Uncertainty" ("La incertidumbre"), whose protagonist is the dying Igarzábal. Each of the three parts revolves around the octagonal room that is alternately the jaguars' tomb, the central space of the torture center, and the heart of an abandoned house that hides an adulterous affair. The novel, by Argentine author Angélica Gorodischer, is both an intriguing puzzle and a meditation on how to write about, or through, violence, injustice, and loss. Among Gorodischer's many novels, Jaguars' Tomb most directly addresses the abductions and disappearances that occurred under the Argentine military dictatorship of 1976–83. This is the fourth of Gorodischer's books translated into English. The first, Kalpa Imperial—translated by Ursula Le Guin—was selected for the New York Times summer reading list in 2003. Review "One of the highest points of Gorodischer's poetic art." --Book Radar"The whole novel can only be read as a poetic of writing, an institutional attempt to create a new world." --Adrián Ferrero, National University of La Plata About the Author Angélica Gorodischer is the Argentine author of seventeen novels and several story collections. Gorodischer's literary awards include the Gilgamesh Prize; the Platinum Konex; the Dignity Award from the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights; the Silvina Bullrich Award from the Argentina Writers' Society; and the Esteban Echeverría Award from Gente de Letras, Argentina. Her work has previously been translated into English by Ursula K. Le Guin, Sue Burke, and Amalia Gladhart.Amalia Gladhart is a professor of Spanish at the University of Oregon. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. I dreamt I was in heaven. Not Heaven, paradise of fortunate souls. In the heavens, that sky blue—what? elytron?—that officially covers all of us, covers religions that promise eternal happiness as much as it does wretched poems, clumsily rhymed. In the heavens, up there above where, a poor imitation, a mirror of our own, there’s another city. Standing on dense clouds, hard as bitumen, compact, immobile as stone angels, clouds sprawled like sacks of corn, I felt no fear that I might fall and fall and smash against the ground. I think it fair to say I felt nothing. Indifference, maybe; or something still more disagreeable, like boredom. Poor heavens, to harbor this ill-humored man, even if it was but to show him the other side of the clouds, just for a moment. So much, so little, so miserly—I thought I should give something in exchange, that I was expected to give something, but what? What more can I give after giving what I gave, what they tore from me? I only know how to write, but words are little if it’s payment—although it could also be a debt—if it’s a matter of payment, of price. Or maybe I could sing, recount in a reverse accounting all the anguish and we’re back to the matter of the words. Poor heavens. Lying on a high bed of clouds, I looked around and saw the city. Not the city down below, the city in the clouds. It was a city—it could have been any of them, or none, it made no difference; a city, yes, that’s what it was, one of the largest. It was enormous, flooded with skyscrapers as if that were a way to defend it, to make it appear (or even be) invulnerable, and it was. I turned on my side so as to see it better and then I saw it the way it had to be seen: static, deserted, all white, the buildings perforated by tiny windows. I didn’t see gardens, or monuments or balconies or inhabitants or libraries or streets or bars or schools; only the city, the buildi