Bøger af Juan José Saer

”Saers roman kombinerer delelementer fra den hjemsøgende, metafysiske flertydighed i Jorge Luis Borges’ lyrik og Graham Greenes sanselige beskrivelser af de mørke afkroge i den fysiske verden og menneskets sjæl. Det manende billedsprog og ideerne, der lægges frem i Stedsønnen, glemmer man ikke igen.” – Washington Times ”Lad mig sige det ligeud: Stedsønnen er en stor bog, og forfatterens navn må føjes til listen over de bedste sydamerikanske forfattere.” – Le Monde ”Mindelser om Melville og Conrads Mørkets hjerte.” – Irish Times ”Der er ingen magisk realisme, ingen barok eksotisme og ikke et gran af den sentimentalitet, der nogle gange farver latinamerikansk litteratur; i stedet er de poetiske beskrivelser og meditationer ladet med en intens kraft. ”– Times Educational SupplementEn forældreløs dreng får i begyndelsen af 1500-tallet hyre som kahytsdreng på et skib, der skal sejle mod den endnu uudforskede nye verden. Ved nattetid indlader skibets besætning sig efter tur hos drengen. Da de angribes af en indfødt stamme, er han den eneste overlevende: De indfødte dræber og fortærer hele besætningen i et kødeligt orgie, der synes både kaotisk og strengt rituelt. I årevis lever han som fange hos stammen, forsøger at forstå dens sprog og observerer dens skikke og dens årligt tilbagevendende kannibalistiske fester.Stammen finder deres bytte blandt såvel nabostammerne som de europæiske ekspeditioner og steger og fortærer byttet med en blanding af besat, febril længsel og varsomhed. Derefter går den ellers normalt mådeholdne stamme ekstatisk amok i et bakkanal, som de efterfølgende bruger måneders vegeteren på at komme sig over. Hver gang lader de en enkelt person – kaldet def-ghi – overleve.Efter ti år sættes skibsdrengen af uvisse grunde på en kano og slippes fri. Da han vender hjem, bliver dette eventyr – og hans søgen efter at begribe stammens verdensbillede og erindre og beskrive det ned til mindste detalje – til hans livs omdrejningspunkt.Stedsønnen er en på én gang en historisk roman og en antropologisk beretning om forholdet mellem virkelighed og beskrivelsen af den, om hjemløshed, erindring og kulturel identitet. Ligesom Joseph Conrads Mørkets hjerte tilhører den rækken af vrangvendte eventyrromaner om kolonialisme, om de oprindelige folkeslags undergang og om opløsningen af det europæiske menneske i fremmede omgivelser. Men det er en opløsning, som romanen snarere fascineres af end begræder.Juan José Saer (1937-2005) regnes for en af de vigtigste forfattere i argentinsk litteratur i generationen efter Jorge Luis Borges. Saer var barn af syrisk-libanesiske immigranter, og hans forfatterskab bærer præg af temaer som eksil, fremmedhed og flydende kulturelle identiteter. I 1968 flyttede han til Frankrig for at undervise i litteratur ved Rennes Universitet. På trods af et ønske om at vende hjem på permanent basis lykkedes det aldrig; Saer døde af lungekræft i Paris i 2005.

A haunting novel of grief from one of Argentina's greatest modernist writers.

"e;Saer is one of the best writers of today in any language."e;Ricardo Piglia"e;What Saer presents marvelously is the experience of reality, and the characters' attempts to write their own narratives within its excess."e;BookforumIn modern-day Paris, Pichn Garay receives a computer disk containing a manuscriptwhich might be fictional, or could be a memoirby Doctor Real, a nineteenth-century physician tasked with leading a group of five mental patients on a trip to a recently constructed asylum. Their trip, which ends in disaster and fire, is a brilliant tragicomedy thanks to the various insanities of the patients, among whom is a delusional man who greatly over-estimates his own importance and a nymphomaniac nun who tricks everyoneeven the other patientsinto sleeping with her.Fascinating as a faux historical novel and written in Saer's typically gorgeous, Proustian style, The Clouds can be read as a metaphor for exilea huge theme for Saer and a lot of Argentine writersas well as an examination of madness.Juan Jos Saer was the leading Argentinian writer of the post-Borges generation. The author of numerous novels and short-story collections (including Scars and La Grande), Saer was awarded Spain's prestigious Nadal Prize in 1987 for The Event. Five of his novels are available from Open Letter Books.Hilary Vaughn Dobel has an MFA in poetry and translation from Columbia University. She is the author of two manuscripts and, in addition to Saer, she has translated work by Carlos Pintado.

"e;The most important Argentinian writer since Borges."e;The IndependentThe One Before is a triptych of sorts, consisting of a series of short piecescalled "e;Arguments"e;and two longer stories"e;Half-Erased"e; and "e;The One Before"e;all of which revolve around the ideas of exile and memory.Many of the characters who populate Juan Jos Saer's other novels appear here, including Tomatis, ngel Leto, and Washington Noriega (who appear in La Grande, Scars, and The Sixty-Five Years of Washington, all of which are available from Open Letter). Saer's typical themes are on display in this collection as well, as is his idiosyncratic blend of philosophical ruminations and precise storytelling.From the story of the two characters who decide to bury a message in a bottle that simply says "e;MESSAGE,"e; to Pigeon Garay's attempt to avoid the rising tides and escape Argentina for Europe, The One Before evocatively introduces readers to Saer's world and gives the already indoctrinated new material about their favorite characters.Juan Jos Saer was the leading Argentinian writer of the post-Borges generation. The author of numerous novels and short-story collections (including Scars and La Grande), Saer was awarded Spain's prestigious Nadal Prize in 1987 for The Event.Roanne Kantor is a doctoral student in comparative literature at the University of Texas at Austin. Her translation of The One Before won the 2009 Susan Sontag Prize for Translation. Her translations from Spanish have appeared in Little Star magazine, Two Lines, and Palabras Errantes.

"e;With meticulous prose, rendered by Dolph's translation into propulsive English, Saer's The Sixty-Five Years of Washington captures the wilderness of human experience in all its variety."e;New York TimesIt's October 1960, say, or 1961, in a seaside Argentinian city named Santa Fe, and The Mathematicianwealthy, elegant, educated, dressed from head to toe in whiteis just back from a grand tour of Europe. He's on his way to drop off a press release about the trip to the papers when he runs into ngel Leto, a relative newcomer to Santa Fe who does some accounting, but who this morning has decided to wander the town rather than go to work.One day soon, The Mathematician will disappear into exile after his wife's assassination, and Leto will vanish into the guerrilla underground, clutching his suicide pill like a talisman. But for now, they settle into a long conversation about the events of Washington Noriega's sixty-fifth birthdaya party neither of them attended.Saer's The Sixty-Five Years of Washington is simultaneously a brilliant comedy about memory, narrative, time, and death and a moving narrative about the lost generations of an Argentina that was perpetually on the verge of collapse.Juan Jos Saer was the leading Argentinian writer of the post-Borges generation. The author of numerous novels and short-story collections (including Scars and La Grande), Saer was awarded Spain's prestigious Nadal Prize in 1987 for The Event.Steve Dolph is the founder of Calque, a journal of literature in translation. His translation of Juan Jos Saer's Scars was a finalist for the 2012 Best Translated Book Award.

"e;The most important Argentinian writer since Borges."e;The IndependentJuan Jose Saer's Scars explores a crime committed by Luis Fiore, a thirty-nine year old laborer who shot his wife twice in the face with a shotgun; or, rather, it explores the circumstances of four characters who have some connection to the crime: a young reporter, ngel, who lives with his mother and works the courthouse beat; a dissolute attorney who clings to life only for his nightly baccarat game; a misanthropic and dwindling judge who's creating a superfluous translation of The Picture Dorian Gray; and, finally, Luis Fiore himself, who, on May Day, went duck hunting with his wife, daughter, and a bottle of gin.Each of the stories in Scars explores a fragment in timebe it a day or several monthswhen the lives of these characters are altered, more or less, by a singular event. Originally published in 1969, Scars marked a watershed moment in Argentinian literature and has since become a modern classic of Latin American literature.Juan Jos Saer was the leading Argentinian writer of the post-Borges generation. The author of numerous novels and short-story collections (including Scars and La Grande), Saer was awarded Spain's prestigious Nadal Prize in 1987 for The Event.Steve Dolph is the founder of Calque, a journal of literature in translation. His translation of Juan Jos Saer's Scars was a finalist for the 2012 Best Translated Book Award.