Rodrigo Blanco Calderon's Books

Sacrifices

Stories

By: Rodrigo Blanco Calderón

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Winner of the O. Henry Prize for the story "The Mad People of Paris" These revelatory short stories tread the line between surrealism and realism with strange, appealing characters who take on a sacrifice in spite of themselves. A followup to his first novel, The Night (winner of the Rive Gauche à Paris Prize for foreign books in 2016), this collection of short stories by Venezuelan literary star Rodrigo Blanco Calderón features a taxidermist painter, a blind man lost in Mexico City, a female motorcyclist who rides naked through the night, a foreigner who learns a language making confessions in Paris churches, and a dying pilot who finds peace in a reading of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Impeccable and masterful in his storytelling, Blanco Calderón constructs a nocturnal cast of characters who become the victims and executioners of a sacrifice in the midst of a floundering Venezuela, others with the threat of terrorism in France, or in a Mexico symbolizing the first shots of the revolution.

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Seven Stories Press

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ISBN 10

1644211750

ISBN 13

9781644211755

The Night

By: Rodrigo Blanco Calderon

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The Night

By: Rodrigo Blanco Calderon

For readers who love Bolaño, a new voice of Latin American fiction, winner of the Mario Vargas Llosa Prize. Recurring blackouts envelop Caracas in an inescapable darkness that makes nightmares come true. Real and fictional characters, most of them are writers, exchange the role of narrator in this polyphonic novel. They recount contradictory versions of the plot, a series of femicides that began with the energy crisis. The central narrator is a psychiatrist who manipulates the accounts of his friend, an author writing a book titled The Night; and his patient, an advertising executive obsessed with understanding the world through word puzzles. The author shifts between crime fiction and metafiction, cautioning readers that the events retold are both true and manipulated. This is a political novel about the financial crisis and socio-political division in Venezuela from 2008 to 2010. The title of the book, originally also in English, is a gesture towards Chavism's failure to resist US influence. Yet, the form is unapologetically literary, a reflection on the depiction and distortion of reality through storytelling. Blanco Calderón said about the potential of language, "I am convinced that all the evil in the world begins in them: in words" (Caracas, 2010).

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Page Count

270

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Seven Stories Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

164421041X

ISBN 13

9781644210413

The Night

By: Rodrigo Blanco Calderón

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The Night

By: Rodrigo Blanco Calderón

NOVELA GALARDONADA CON EL III PREMIO BIENAL DE NOVELA MARIO VARGAS LLOSA Premio Rive Gauche (Francia) Premio de la Crítica (Venezuela) Una fábula sobre la Venezuela de hoy, por el autor revelación de la literatura latinoamericana de los últimos años «Estoy convencido de que todo el mal del mundo empieza en ellas. En las palabras.» Caracas 2010. La crisis energética es aprovechada por el gobierno revolucionario para decretar cortes eléctricos que, durante horas, funden a negro todo el país. En esos lapsos de tiempo, Venezuela parece retroceder en la historia hacia una nueva Edad de Piedra que se filtra por todas las rendijas. En medio de esta atmósfera, dos amigos, un escritor frustrado y un psiquiatra acostumbrado a involucrarse en la vida de sus pacientes, conversan sobre una serie de crímenes ocurridos en el último año. Pedro Álamo, otro de los personajes de esta novela polifónica, busca obsesivamente en los juegos de palabras -los que crea y los que sueña de su admirado Darío Lancini- la clave para entender el desquiciado mundo en el que vive. Como si buscara convertir la realidad en algo diferente cambiando el orden de los elementos que la forman, intentando encontrar así su exacto significado. Literatura, rock, sueños, violencia, política, amor, ausencias y miedos se entremezclan en la mente de los protagonistas. Abren laberintos, crean encrucijadas y producen cortocircuitos vitales. Con esta historia en la que todo parece caminar al borde del delirio. Donde la Venezuela actual se ve reflejada en un espejo atravesado por sombras apocalípticas y sus habitantes se enfrentan al destino que les aguarda inexorable; sea este el cumplimiento de sus obsesiones o la muerte. Reseñas: «Una fábula de rabiosa actualidad.» Isabel Vargas, La Razón «Un artefacto literario construido con maestría por un narrador que sabe apreciar la complejidad de su metrópoli natal y de la vida de sus habitantes.» Jurado del III Premio Bienal de Novela Mario Vargas Llosa «En The Night, Rodrigo Blanco Calderón convierte la gravísima situación de Venezuela en una impresionante metáfora de nuestro mundo contemporáneo; un mundo desorientado, desigual y violento que busca aun, entre las ruinas del siglo XX, el camino hacia un futuro que no llega.» Gustavo Guerrero, editor de Gallimard «Caracas en la oscuridad de los apagones como un cementerio sin voces, siendo como fue la ciudad más ruidosa del mundo, el alucinante retrato en sombras de un inframundo donde los psicópatas andan sueltos como almas en pena. El poder de mandíbula insaciable que mastica seres humanos en la oscuridad.» Sergio Ramírez, El País «Absorbente y complicada, The Night es mucho más que la crónica de una Venezuela moribunda.» Enrique Benítez, La Opinión de Málaga « The Night es la novela que da a conocer en España a uno de los grandes nombres de la actual literatura venezolana, una literatura que suele ahora dar lo mejor de sí misma fuera de sus fronteras [...].» Juan Ángel Juristo, Culturas/s de La Vanguardia «El estilo de Rodrigo Blanco es admirable.» Arturo García Ramos, ABC Cultural «Al leer los relatos de Rodrigo Blanco Calderón uno alberga la nostalgia por esos días ya remotos en que uno leía por leer; en que uno leía porque se le antojaba y lo que se le antojaba, al punto de desarrollar una fruición por la literatura que cualquiera asociaría a una adicción.» El Mundo, Venezuela

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286

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ALFAGUARA

Published Date

ISBN 10

8420423653

ISBN 13

9788420423654

Sacrifices

Stories

By: Rodrigo Blanco Calderón

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Sacrifices

Stories

By: Rodrigo Blanco Calderón

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Seven Stories Press

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ISBN 10

1644211750

ISBN 13

9781644211755

Simpatía

A Novel

By: Rodrigo Blanco Calderón

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Simpatía

A Novel

By: Rodrigo Blanco Calderón

Rodrigo Blanco Calderón has established himself as one of the great voices of Latin American literature with his debut novel The Night, and his short story collection Sacrifices. Simpatía is a suspenseful novel with unexpected twists and turns about the agony of Venezuela and the collapse of Chavismo. Simpatía is set in the Venezuela of Nicolas Maduro amid a mass exodus of the intellectual class who have been leaving their pets behind. Ulises Kan, the protagonist and a movie buff, receives a text message from his wife, Paulina, saying she is leaving the country (and him). Ulises is not heartbroken but liberated by Paulina's departure. Two other events end up disrupting his life even further: the return of Nadine, an unrequited love from the past, and the death of his father-in-law, General Martín Ayala. Thanks to Ayala’s will, Ulises discovers that he has been entrusted with a mission—to transform Los Argonautas, the great family home, into a shelter for abandoned dogs. If he manages to do it in time, he will inherit the luxurious apartment that he had shared with Paulina. This novel centers on themes of family and orphanhood in order to address the abuse of power by a patrilineage of political figures in Latin America, from Simón Bolívar to Hugo Chávez. The untranslatable title, Simpatía, which means both sympathy and charm, ironically references the qualities these political figures share. In a morally bankrupt society, where all human ties seem to have dissolved, Ulises is like a stray dog picking up scraps of sympathy. Can you really know who you love? What is, in essence, a family? Are abandoned dogs proof of the existence or non-existence of God? Ulises unknowingly embodies these questions, as a pilgrim of affection in a post-love era.

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Page Count

233

Publisher

Seven Stories Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1644213664

ISBN 13

9781644213667

The Night

By: Rodrigo Blanco Calderon

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The Night

By: Rodrigo Blanco Calderon

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Page Count

270

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Seven Stories Press

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ISBN 10

164421041X

ISBN 13

9781644210413

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Sacrifices

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The Night

The Night

The Night

The Night

Sacrifices

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Simpatía

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