"Zambra is indeed the herald of a new wave of Chilean fiction."--Marcela
Valdes, The Nation
The Private Lives of Trees tells the story of a single night: a young
professor of literature named Julián is reading to his step-daughter
Daniela and nervously waiting for his wife Verónica to return from her
art class. Each night, Julián has been improvising a story about trees
to tell Daniela before she goes to sleep, and each Sunday he works on a
novel about a man tending to his bonsai, but something about this night
is different. As Julián becomes increasing concerned that Verónica won't
return, he reflects on their life together in minute detail, and
imagines what Daniela--at twenty, at twenty-five, at thirty years old,
without a mother--will think of his novel.
Perhaps even more daring and dizzying than Zambra's magical Bonsai, The
Private Lives of Trees demands to be read in a single sitting, and it
casts a spell that will bring you back to it again and again.
Alejandro Zambra was named as one of Granta's "Best Young
Spanish-language Novelists." He is the author of three novels, including
Bonsai, which was made into a film, and Ways of Going Home.
Megan McDowell received her Master's Degree in Literary Translation
from the University of Texas at Dallas. In addition to two books by
Alejandro Zambra, she has translated Under This Terrible Sun by Carlos
Busqued and La Vida Doble by Arturo Fontaine.
