Still Born

Product Description Still Born is the story of two friends who make diametrically opposite choices in life. Alina and Laura are independent and career-driven women in their mid-thirties, neither of whom have ever built their future around the prospect of a family. Laura has taken the drastic decision to be sterilised, but as time goes by Alina becomes drawn to the idea of becoming a mother. When Alina’s daughter survives childbirth – after a diagnosis that predicted the opposite – and Laura becomes attached to her neighbour’s son, both women are forced to reckon with the complexity of their emotions. With her signature candour and insight, Nettel explores maternal ambivalence with a surgeon’s touch, carefully dissecting the contradictions that make up the lived experiences of women. Review ‘Nettel’s sharp, potent novel depicts how even the briefest relationship can affect the rest of a life.’ ― Publishers Weekly, starred review‘A compassionately written portrait of urban loneliness and the human impulse to belong.’ ― Kirkus ‘Guadalupe Nettel is a brilliant anatomist of love and perversity, and each new book is a revelation.’ ― Katie Kitamura‘Nettel’s eye lightly deforms things and gives rise to a tension, subtle but persistent, that immerses us in an uncomfortable reality, disquieting, even disturbing―a gaze that illuminates her prose like an alien sun shining down on our world.’ ― Valeria Luiselli About the Author Guadalupe Nettel was born in Mexico in 1973 and grew up between Mexico and France. She is the author of the international award-winning novels El huésped (2006), The Body Where I was Born (2011) and After the Winter (2014, Herralde Novel Prize). She has also published three collections of short stories: Les jours fossils (2002), Pétalos y otras historias incómodas (2008), Natural Histories (2013, Ribera del Duero Prize). In 2008 she was named by the Hay Festival as one of the more promising Latin American authors. Her work has been translated into more than ten languages and has appeared in publications such as Granta, The White Review, Le Magazine littéraire and L’Atelier du Roman. She currently lives in Mexico City where she is the director of the magazine Revista de la Universidad de México.