Aphasia

(Hardback)

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Description

Antonio's sister is on the run. After threatening to shoot her neighbours and claiming that Antonio, Obama and the Pentagon are conspiring against her, she's disappeared. Antonio, however, is doing his best to think of anything but his sister or, for that matter, any of his problems, for fear of destabilising the precarious middle-class existence he's built in America with his family. Turning his back on his present-day woes, Antonio submerges himself in the past, transcribing recordings of his mother speaking about her troubled life in Colombia; his ex-wife speaking about her life in the Czech Republic; writing furiously about the past relationships that still haunt him... This boldly original, luminous novel sparkles with life as it captures the irresistible pull of the past, and the immensity of the present moment. It cements Crdenas' place as one of today's most innovative, daring literary voices.

Reviews

'Mauro Javier Crdenas has knocked down the novel as we know it, and built a cathedral out of the debris. Aphasia is monumental, funny, potent, and fresh. It marks a new beginning.'

* Carlos Fonseca, author of Natural History *

'Mauro Javier Crdenas's Aphasia batters at the limits of guilt, of masculinity, of love and promiscuity, of the American family and English syntax.'

* Nicole Krauss, author of Forest Dark *

'Brainy and decadent, playful and outrageous, Aphasia marks the comeback of the Self in a spiraling trip into contemporary manhood and the Latin American spirit that will render you speechless.'

* Pola Oloixarac, author of Dark Constellations *

'Long, breathless sentences dizzying and richly packed with memories, connections, and literary references. Crdenas undercuts the idea of a single, stable identity and suggests the self as a many-layered work in progress... Fans of the author's inventive, ambitious debut novel will find the same sardonic intelligence, paired here with a deep humanity... Original, richly felt, deftly written.'

* Kirkus (starred review) *

'In the follow-up to his wildly ambitious debut novel,The Revolutionaries Try Again(2016),Crdenas again deploys his sense of invention and irreverence, jettisoning conventional paragraph and dialogue breaks andembracing long-running sentences that delightin playful exasperation... [Aphasia] will appeal to fans of Latin American fiction that navigates the bleeding edge of experimentation.'

-- Booklist

'Buckle up, kids, Crdenas is taking us on a bumpy ride. A mild-mannered bank clerk, who wishes to be a novelist, meditates on memory, loss, family, and other things both real and imagined.Aphasiais an avalanche of language, perfect for readers of Thomas Bernhard and Lucy Ellmann's Ducks, Newburyport.'

-- Book Culture

'Excellent... Aphasia's spirit is one of blending and border collapse... [It] dramatizes our ability to occupy multiple narratives at once and proves that literature itself can do the same.'

-- High Country News

'A rollercoaster of a run... [A] worthy journey and universal themes emerge... Its the as its happening narration style that makes Crdenass new work so innovative and exciting to read.'

-- Chicago Review of Books

'Thrilling... A writer of originality who makes the English language sound like music.'

-- KCRW's Bookworm

What I dont transcribe I will forget, Antonio, the protagonist of this roving novel, remarks. A Colombian divorc living in Los Angeles, he obsessively documents the stories of those he encounters. He spends nights with women he meets on a sugar-daddy Web site and makes notes of their childhood stories the mornings after. He records his mothers childhood recollections and the ramblings of his sister, who suffers from schizophrenia, and whose experience of abuse at the hands of their father haunts them both. The result is a collage-like meditation on the ephemeral. I have come to define happiness collectively, Antonio reflects, and its ridiculous, given that most adult relationships end anyway.

-- New Yorker

'Threads are woven together in an often-dazzling performance akin to a DJ's mashup, in which two different songs can be heard separately as well as together...Crdenass deft characterization of Antonios confused, troubled masculinity is one of the novels most impressive achievements.'

-- Southwest Review

'As exhilarating as it is dizzying...Postmodern and flamboyant, rich and daring... Crdenas is a new force to be reckoned with in Latin American fiction.'

-- Morning Star

'[Antonio] writes down his erratic, erudite thoughts in a rush of breathless, brainy, convoluted sentences The relentless restlessness of the prose reveals the fragility of [Antonio's] past and the possibilities of a more stable future as a better brother and more involved parent.'

-- Daily Mail

'Modern, psychological, and very poignant...[Aphasia] has made a strong impression on its readers, myself included.'

-- Sounds and Colours

'Reading the boldly inventive and fast paced novelAphasia,is like road tripping through a warm country with your smartest friend; it might be one of the best trips you are likely to take this year.'

-- New York Journal of Books

'Crdenas is able to achieve a kind of dramatic momentum while also maintaining clarity and recognition for the reader... Seriously impressive.'

-- American Book Review

'Pacy, dense and enlivening...Vividly, colourfully assembled, sensitive to the small contradictions and failings of our lives and histories, Aphasia reminds us not so much that we contain multitudes as that multitudes contain us.'

-- ABC Arts, Australia

Author Bio

Mauro Javier Crdenas was born and brought up in Guayaquil, Ecuador and studied Economics at Stanford University. His debut novel, The Revolutionaries Try Again, was published in 2016. He was awarded the 2016 Joseph Henry Jackson Award and in 2017 was included in the Hay Festival anthology Bogot39, a selection of the best young Latin American novelists working today.