Severina
Author(s): Rodrigo Rey Rosa
"Right from the start I picked her for a thief, although that day she didn't take anything...I knew she'd be back", the narrator/bookseller of Severina recalls in this novel's opening pages. Imagine a dark-haired book thief as alluring as she is dangerous. Imagine the mesmerized bookseller secretly tracking the volumes she steals, hoping for insight into her character, her motives, her love life. In Rodrigo Rey Rosa's hands, this tale of obsessive love is told with almost breathless precision and economy. The bookstore owner is soon entangled in Severina's mystery: seductive and peripatetic, of uncertain nationality, she steals books to actually read them and to share with her purported grandfather, Senor Blanco. In this unsettling exploration of the alienating and simultaneously liberating power of love, the bookseller's monotonous existence is rocked by the enigmatic Severina. As in a dream, the disoriented man finds that the thin border between rational and irrational is no longer reliable. Severina confirms Rey Rosa's privileged place in contemporary world literature.
General Information
- :
- : Yale University Press
- : Yale University Press
- : 0.136
- : 01 May 2014
- : United States
- : books
Other Specifications
- : Rodrigo Rey Rosa
- : Paperback
- : English
- : 863.7
- : 112
More About The Product
Rodrigo Rey Rosa, a leading member of the Guatemalan literary scene, is author of many works of fiction, including Dust on Her Tongue, The Beggar's Knife, and The Pelcari Project, all translated into English by the late Paul Bowles. He lives in Guatemala. Chris Andrews teaches at the University of Western Sydney and is a prize-winning poet. He has translated the works of numerous Latin American authors, among them Roberto Bolano and Cesar Aira.
