[Labbé] wreaks havoc on narrative rules from the start and keeps doing
it.--Bookforum
Loquela, Carlos Labbé's fourth novel and second to be translated into
English, is a narrative chameleon, a shape-shifting exploration of
fiction's possibilities.
At a basic level, this book is like a hybrid of Julio Cortázar and Paul
Auster: a distorted detective novel, a love story, and a radical
statement about narrative art. Behind the silence that unites and
separates Carlos and Elisa, behind the game that estranges the albino
girls, Alicia and Violeta, from the best summer afternoons, behind the
destiny of Neutria--a city that disappears with childhood and returns
with desire--and behind a literary move-ment that might be the ultimate
vanguard while at the same time the greatest falsification, questions
arise concerning who truly writes for whom in a novel--the author or the
reader.
Through an array of voices, overlapping story-lines, a kaleidoscope of
literary references, and a delirious prose, Labbé carves out a space for
himself among such form-defying Latin American greats as Diamela Eltit,
Juan Carlos Onetti, and Jorge Luis Borges.
Carlos Labbé, one of Granta's Best Young Spanish-Language
Novelists, was born in Chile and is the author of a collection of short
stories and six novels, one of which, Navidad & Matanza, is available
in English from Open Letter. In addition to his writings, he is a
musician, and has released three albums.
Will Vanderhyden received an MA in literary translation from the
University of Rochester.
