The Clouds
By (Author) Juan Jose Saer
Translated by Hilary Vaughn Dobel
Open Letter
Open Letter
10th May 2016
United States
General
Fiction
863.64
Paperback
168
Width 139mm, Height 215mm
238g
In Paris, Pichon Garay receives a computer disk containing a manuscript - which could be fictional or a memoir - by 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, is a brilliant tragicomedy thanks to the various patients, including a delusional man who greatly over-estimates his own importance and a nymphomaniac nun. Fascinating as a faux historical novel, The Clouds is a metaphor for exile and an examination of madness.
"Saer is one of the best writers of today in any language."Ricardo Piglia
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, Hot Cognition (finalist for the 2015 Brittingham Prize) and He Imagined Himself Laughing (finalist for the 2015 Colorado Prize for Poetry). She also has two forthcoming translations in the works, one by Juan Jos Saer and one by Carlos Pintado.