Firefly

(Paperback)

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Description

Available for the first time in English, Firefly is Sarduy's most autobiographical work. The story follows the coming-of-age of a precocious and exuberant boy with an oversized head and underdeveloped sense of direction, who views the world as a threatening conspiracy. Told in breathless and lyrical prose, the novel is a loving rendition of a long-lost home, a meditation on exile and an allegory of Cuba's isolation in the world. Firefly responds to the questions of the 'Boom' generation, pushing the conventions of authors like Vargas Llosa or Garcia Marquez.

Reviews

Praise for Severo Sarduy's Prix Mdicis-winning Cobra

Sarduy is the master of wordscapes that dip, shake and explore. New York Times Book Review

A paradise of wordsa marbled iridescent text; we are gorged with language, like children who are never refused anythingCobra is the pledge of continuous jubilation, The moment when by its very excess verbal pleasure chokes an reels into bliss. Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text

Sarduy rendered the epiphany of the body luminous, where the pleasure of void meets the furious fire of the world. The Washington Post

Severe Sarduy has everythingso brilliant, so funny, and so bewilderingly apt in his borrowings, his derivations, as well as in his inventions, his findings, he leaves one breathless, like a shot of rum.Richard Howard

Author Bio

Severo Sarduy (1937-1993), Cuban poet, fiction writer, playwright, and literary critic, is considered one of the best prose artists of the twentieth century. In 1972, he was awarded the Prix Medicis for Cobra, one of his six highly acclaimed novels. Sarduy also painted, hosted a radio program, and, as an editor at Editions du Seuil, introduced contemporary Latin American fiction to European readers. Sarduy was a leading intellectual in the early years of the Cuban Revolution. Mark Friedis the translator of Eduardo Galeano's Children of the Days, Mirrors,Voices of Time, Upside Down, Soccer in Sun and Shadow,Walking Words, and We Say No. He is also the translator of the historical collectionEchoes of the Mexican-American War and works by Emilia Ferreiro, Jose Ignacio L pez Vigil, Oscar Ugarteche and Rafael Barajas Duran.