Updated Fiction's Highlghits by Studio Grimorio

G A FICTION

El original es infiel a la

traducción The original is unfaithful to the

translation

Jorge Luis Borges

RL STUDIO

GRIMORIO Literary Agency Bologna | Buenos Aires

FICTION HIGHLIGHTS

Studio Grimorio is the brainchild of agent and translator Mariana Eugenia Califano. It is an international literary agency based in Bologna and Buenos Aires and a “factory” specialized in literary translations from Spanish into Italian and localizations from several languages into Italian. Studio Grimorio represents and promotes authors and publishers, mainly foreigners.

MARIANA E. CALIFANO

| 64, LIBIA RD. | 40138 | | BOLOGNA | ITALY | | P. {+39} 051 716 20 20 | | M. {+39} 329 22 67 452 | | VAT NUMBER 03198321204 | info@grimorio.it

i f h

it.linkedin.com/in/

mariancalifano/ facebook.com/

studiogrimorio

De te fabula narratur

marianacalifano

WWW.GRIMORIO.IT

G v TRANSLATION GRANT FUNDS

ARGENTINA The application form for translation support may be obtained from the Committee’s web page, http://programa-sur.mrecic.gov.ar/en/ reg_form.html, and from the Diplomatic and Consular Representations of the Argentine Republic. The publisher may present the application for translation support and the required documentation at the Reception Desk of the Ministry, or of the Diplomatic and Consular Representations, or may send it by registered post: Programa Sur/ Dicul– Dirección General de Asuntos Culturales   Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto de la República Argentina   Esmeralda 1212 Oficina 1018 – 10th floor   C1007ABR Buenos Aires, Ciudad de Buenos Aires   Argentine Republic Head of the Programa SUR: Lic. Diego Lorenzo. lzd@mrecic.gov.ar | dicul@mrecic.gov.ar Application deadline: February 15 and September 30

BRAZIL

Brazil's National Library Foundation, an office of the Ministry of Culture, has created the Support Program for the Translations and Publications of Brazilian Authors Abroad in order to foster a greater presence of works of local literature in foreign publishing company's catalogs and in bookstore shelves and virtual bookshelves throughout the world. For futher information contact: Tel: +55 21 2220-2057 | e-mail: translation@bn.br http://www.bn.br/portal/arquivos/pdf/TranslationGrantn011320132015english.pdf

| 64, LIBIA RD. | 40138 | | BOLOGNA | ITALY | | P. {+39} 051 716 20 20 | | M. {+39} 329 22 67 452 | | VAT NUMBER 03198321204 |

FAROE ISLANDS Go to the FarLit website, www.farlit.fo, to download a copy of the application from the Faroese literature in translation. Application should be sent to Guðrun Gaard - gudrung@kallnet.fo Tórsbyrgi 5 FO-100 Tórshavn, Faroe Islands (mark the envelope “Transaltion Grant”) Application deadline: April 1 and October 1

SPAIN Go to the Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte website and follow those links: http://www.mcu.es/ayudasSubvenciones/Libro/Libro_Ayudas2013_TraduLenguaExtranjera.html http://www.boe.es/diario_boe/txt.php?id=BOE-A-2013-4161

De te fabula narratur

STUDIO GRIMORIO

RIGHTS LIST | 2015 - 16 (+39) 329 22 67 452 (+39) 051 716 20 20 64 Libia Rd. | 40138 | Bologna | Italy info@grimorio.it marian@grimorio.it www.grimorio.it

HOT NEWS Leandro Ávalos Blacha | MALICIA (Malice)

A ING

FORTHCOM

184

ARG

100 aprox.

ARG

160 aprox.

ARG

200 aprox.

ARG

90 aprox.

ARG

110 aprox.

A ING

FORTHCOM

Tusquets, Buenos Aires | FORTHCOMING November 2016 GENRE Short Stories | Literary Fiction ALEJANDRO AGRESTI | El Perfume de los libros (Sent of Books)

A d

unrelease

Previously unreleased GENRE Comedy Drama | Literary Fiction ALEJANDRO AGRESTI | Rachel Patagonia (El Sur de Rachel)

A d

unrelease

Previously unreleased | Originally written in English GENRE Chick-Lit | Literary Fiction Leandro Ávalos Blacha | UNA CASA DE PIE (A Standing House)

A d

unrelease

Previously unreleased GENRE Horror | Ghost Stories ANNA FADO | La Ballata di Ross (The Ballad of Rox)

A d unrelease

Previously unreleased GENRE Chick-Lit | Literary Fiction

De te fabula narratur

STUDIO GRIMORIO

RIGHTS LIST | 2015 - 16 (+39) 329 22 67 452 (+39) 051 716 20 20 64 Libia Rd. | 40138 | Bologna | Italy info@grimorio.it marian@grimorio.it www.grimorio.it

EVER HOT FICTION AUTHOR | TITLE | NOTES

Leandro Ávalos Blacha | BERAZACHUSSETTS

N|L

160

ARG

392

ARG

ISBN 9789872350833 | Entropia, Buenos Aires, 2007 Premio Indio Rico 2007. Rights sold in France: Asphalte, 2011, Galimard, 2012 GENRE New Weird | Horror | Grotesque

Leandro Ávalos Blacha | MEDIANERA (The Go-Between) ISBN 9789871727537 | Eduvim, Córdoba, 2011 Rights sold in France: Asphalte, 2013 GENRE New Weird | Horror | Grotesque VERA FOGWILL | Buenos, Limpios y Lindos (Good, Clean & Fun)  ISBN 9789507317545 | Planeta, Buenos Aires, november 2013 LITERARY GENRE Literary Fiction

STUDIO GRIMORIO

RIGHTS LIST | 2015 - 16 (+39) 329 22 67 452 (+39) 051 716 20 20 64 Libia Rd. | 40138 | Bologna | Italy info@grimorio.it marian@grimorio.it www.grimorio.it

FICTION AUTHOR | TITLE | NOTES

ESTHER Cross | EL BANQUETE DE LA ARAÑA (The spider’s banquet)

N|L

238

ARG

144

ARG

176

ARG

141

ARG

208

ARG

ISBN 978-950-9779-55-6 | Tusquets, Barcelona, 1999

LITERARY GENRE Literary Fiction ESTHER Cross | RADIANA ISBN 9789500428668 | Emecé, Buenos Aires, 2007 2nd edition, 8vo Loco & Tren en Movimiento, Buenos Aires 2016 LITERARY GENRE Literary Fiction | Sci-Fi ESTHER Cross | KAVANAGH short stories ISBN 9509779997 | TusQuets, Madrid, 2004

LITERARY GENRE Literary Fiction

A OVEL

GRAPHIC N

ESTHER Cross | LA SEÑORITA PORCEL (Ms. Porcel) ISBN 9786070300783 | Siglo XXI, Mexico City, 2009

LITERARY GENRE Literary Fiction Esther Cross | La mujer que escribió Frankenstein (The woman who wrote Frankenstein) ISBN 9789500435338 | Emecé, Buenos Aires 2013 LITERARY GENRE Literary Fiction | Biography

STUDIO GRIMORIO RIGHTS LIST | 2015 - 16 (+39) 329 22 67 452 (+39) 051 716 20 20 64 Libia Rd. | 40138 | Bologna | Italy info@grimorio.it marian@grimorio.it www.grimorio.it

Children BOOKS AUTHOR | TITLE | NOTES NEW

Antonio Ferrara | Il Fiume è un Campo di Pallone (The River is a Soccer Field) | ISBN: 978886942 | Bacchilega Junior | Imola, 2016

N|L

Growing Up | Diversity | AGE 8-11

ILLUSTRATED BOOK Size: 15 x 21 cm - Paperback

STUDIO GRIMORIO RIGHTS LIST | 2015 - 16 (+39) 329 22 67 452 (+39) 051 716 20 20 64 Libia Rd. | 40138 | Bologna | Italy info@grimorio.it marian@grimorio.it www.grimorio.it

OLMO EDICIONES NEWS AUTHOR | TITLE | NOTES

Diego Huberman | The prosecutor of the taste

FICTION | NON FICTION PP

N|L

208

ARG

256

ARG

Olmo Ediciones, Buenos Aires, 2016 POPULAR NON FICTION | HISTORY | FOOD CRITIC Gastón Pérez Izquierdo| Man and a Half Olmo Ediciones, Buenos Aires, 2016 FICTION | HYSTORY

De te fabula narratur

MALICE IS THE NEW WEIRD CRIME NOVEL WITH A SCENT OF THE TRADITIONAL

BLACHA’S IRONIC HORROR.

It has been told by some cinema legend that the close-up of the gloved hands of Michael Myers in the Halloween movie are John Carpenter’s ones and that Dario Argento has done the same in movies as Deep Red and The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. It has been told that, beyond the undercover cameos, it’s in those moments that the viewers become partners in crime with the director, in those moments they are wielding the biggest knife and plunge it mercilessly in any part of the victim’s anatomy. That's why when you read Malice you can’t stop thinking about Leandro Avalos Blacha typing with black gloves as if he were a serial killer who murders at ease and unpunished, while he happily quotes and pays tribute with a unique black humor, to our mentor, the count Alberto Laiseca. LEONARDO OYOLA

Leandro Ávalos Blacha was born in Quilmes, Argentina, in 1980. As cultural journalist he works and lives in Buenos Aires. He won the award Nueva Narrativa Sudaca Border 2005 with Serialismo (Eloísa Cartonera) and in 2007 the award Indio Rico with Berazachussetts, published in France first by Asphalte and them by Folio, (Gallimard). His short novel Medianera (Eduvin), was also translated in French by Asphalte. In 2014, he was a guest of the Salon du livre de Paris and in the 14th edition of the festival

It all starts with a newlywed couple and a friend of them who go on honeymoon to Villa Carlos Paz, a pleasant vacation place in the Argentinean sierra, a town famous for its variety shows. Their arrival coincides with the beginning of a celebrity murder series. The detective in charge of the case is Di Luca, a cop on the edge of retirement, who has not only to solve the case but to manage the press too. The STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

protagonist, Juan Carlos, has met his new wife, Perla, in the church attended by his mother.

In Villa Carlos Paz the most successful variety show is the Wilma Menta’s one, a parody of the eternal struggle between Batman and Joker in which, every night, a spectator is chosen to take part in the show. Perla is one of the lucky ones. During the show a teenager and a middle age psychic go to the bathroom and find there the body of a showgirl. The corpse speaks with them, telling how the killing was. Both of them are found after the show in a catatonic state. The press always wants to interview them on what happened. The teenager and the psychic are initially scared, but finally agree to talk with the journalists. Their stories are different and the two start to argue.

In the meantime, Perla shows a very good attitude as an actress and risks to be killed too. The cop has no clue on what is going on and while he tries to protect the involved people the teen girl runs away from home. In the meantime, after Perla risks her life, Juan Carlos’ mother, along with a group of nuns, leaves for Villa Carlos Paz and the teenager has turned into a poltergeist. In the thick of it all a special agent reveals to Juan Carlos, his wife and his mother, the presence of alien life on earth, while the middle age psychic is worried about the teenager after she has treated her so bad and tries to help her parents in finding her.

The newlyweds, the friend who travelled with them, Juan Carlos mothers and the nuns are all gathered for the “grand final” by Malice, a retired star, who organizes high-end sex parties… SOME FRENCH PRESS FROM HIS PREVIOUS NOVELS

Un mélange entre Piazzolla et Rage Against The Machine [...] Un grand grand grand roman argentin. MICHEL DUFRANNE Un (court) roman furieusement tropicaliste genre les Marx Brothers chez Romero. JEAN-PIERRE ADREVON Un road movie infernal et déjanté avec une galerie de portraits assez hallucinants et hallucinés! EIREANN YVON Comme si tous les pulp fictions du coin s’étaient concentrés en un seul texte orchestré avec une évidente jouissance par un écrivain doué pour brouiller les codes. DAVID VINCENT

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

LEANDRO ÁVALOS BLACHA All his books

Leandro

Ávalos Blacha was

born in Quilmes, Argentina, in 1980. As journalist he works and lives in Buenos Aires.

won the award Nueva Narrativa Sudaca

Border 2005 with “Serialismo” (Eloísa Cartonera) and in 2007 the award Indio Rico with “Berazachussetts”, published in France first by Asphalte and them by Folio, (Gallimard). His short novel “Medianera” (Eduvin), was also translated in French by Asphalte. In 2014, he was a guest of the Salon du livre de Paris and in the 14th edition of the festival Imaginales.

LEANDRO ÁVALOS BLACHA BERAZACHUSSETS 2007 | Entropía | Argentina | 160 p. INDIO RICO AWARD 2007 RIGHTS SOLD IN FRANCE: ASPHALTE FIRST EDITION, 2011, SECOND EDITION GALLIMARD, 2013. … With a breezy and corrosive style Leandro Ávalos Blacha grinds genre conventions and makes to coincide the most emblematic traits of the B movies and pulp literature with the geography of the Buenos Aires literary landscape, to build a very special universe whose most notable value is the happy grip it exerts on the reader. CÉSAR AIRA, DANIEL LINK, ALAN PAULS, PRIZE INDIO RICO’S COMMITTEE

Take

"Desperate Housewives" and mix it with the “Dawn of the Dead”, add a pinch of

"Thursday's Widows" by Claudia Piñeiro and splash it all with punk rock. Berazachussetts is a narrative puzzle in which all the pieces are put together step by step towards a unique apocalyptic final. It’s a catchy and pristine story, inspired by the new trends in contemporary literature, that unleashes a reflection on the complex, and sometimes weird, relationships between literature and society.

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

The situations and characters are sketched with a sense of humor without ever losing credibility. The novel depicts with the lightness typical of the genre, the plight of a country in the throes of economic, political, cultural and ethical crisis. Argentina's default described by Berazachussetts resembles nowadays Europe, America or Asia: corrupted politicians, mean celebrities, silly starlets, blackmailed subaltern classes, precarious economic situation, and much, much desire for redemption, by those who seem not to live longer.

Berazachussetts

seems to say: it's time to

rise out of graves. Similarly, the final apocalyptic inundation works as a total ethics clean-up worthy of the great flood. The ability of Ávalos Blacha is to never slip into a didactic or moralizing tale, thanks to his irony and his cinematic writing. RIGHTS SOLD IN FRANCE: 2011 | ASPHALTE FIRST EDITION 2013 | POCKET EDITION FOLIO - GALLIMARD PRESS

La géographie fantastique du roman reflète cette mixture et la tension qui en découle pour soutenir une vision déformée du réel [...] impure, teintée de l’univers des films d’horreur, de l’étrange, du pulp, avec un certain air de science-fiction. FRANÇOIS PERRIN | STANDARD MAGAZINE JANVIER 2012 Un (court) roman furieusement tropicaliste genre les Marx Brothers chez Romero. JEAN-PIERRE ADREVON | L’ÉCRAN FANTASTIQUE JANVIER 2012 Avec Berazachussetts, son deuxième roman, le trentenaire Leandro Ávalos Blacha propose une plongée explosive au cœur d’une Argentine devenue folle, à travers des pages aussi distrayantes que troublantes. Le roman se présente comme une fable légère, accessible, haletante. Pour autant, le lecteur ne devrait pas s’y tromper longtemps : un salutaire malaise pourrait rapidement learauder, qui n’aura rien d’accidentel. Qui a dit que de la fantaisie ne pouvait découler une dénonciation en bonne et due forme ? FRANÇOIS PERRIN | TGV MAGAZINE 2011- JANVIER 2012

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

LEANDRO ÁVALOS BLACHA Medianera | The Go-Between 2011 | Editorial Eduvim | Argentina | 92 p. THE GO-BETWEEN IS A COLLECTION OF FOUR SHORT STORIES WHICH TAKES HUXLEY’S VISIONS INTO CORTÁZAR’S ARGENTINA.

In a world dominated by a telecommunication company, customers must affiliate with it, pay huge fees and allow the inspection of all their actions and private business. The company offers to the customers some discount if they host some prisoner. The daily relationships between the improvised guards and the prisoners, develop into a stifling atmosphere where the radiation emanated by a monstrous antenna fries the air, everyone could be a rat and the Big Brother watches you from the screen of your phone…

The first story tells about a guard who falls in love with her prisoner and has to rescue him from the aim of his wife; the second one is about an unbeaten wrestler who takes an impossible dare; the third one is about a scientist, whose work is to downsize heads, who tries to train a little girl who feeds on human flesh; the last one tells about a doll left by a kid in a no man's land that triggers a series of mysterious events.

This collection of stories mixes irony, humour and social denunciation in a very peculiar way, a way that has lead Avalos Blacha to be fair and inevitably associated with César Aira.

The four short novels are connected, and even if they cover different genres from dystopia to crime fiction, situations and characters are meant to be read together in a sort of charming downward spiral.

The french edition includes another unpublished short story. C’est dérangeant, choquant, remuant, surréaliste, et surtout très cruel, vous n’en sortirez pas indemnes! FRANÇOIS PERRIN | TGV MAGAZINE 2011

PRESS REVIEW HTTP://ASPHALTE-EDITIONS.COM/DATA/PRESSE/21032013114746PRESSE.PDF HTTP://WWW.REVISTALECTURAS.CL/LEANDRO-AVALOS-BLACHA-MEDIANERA-POR-NATALIE-SEVE/ HTTPS://WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/WATCH?V=MDYPGZLSFTO HTTP://WWW.ENCOREDUNOIR.COM/ARTICLE-COTE-COUR-DE-LEANDRO-AVALOS-BLACHA-117444413.HTML HTTP://WWW.LACAUSELITTERAIRE.FR/COTE-COUR

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

Esther Cross Tres hermanos | Three brothers November 2016 | Tusquets | Argentina

Literature that ventures where intelligence is no longer comfortable… JUAN IGNACIO BOIDO It’s always hard to cut reading and close a Cross’ book because her prose has a speed that does not allow us to stop. ANGELA PRADELLI

Three kids wander around the countryside. They discover secrets and learn how to keep them. There is a lot, perhaps too much, to see. The place is not a quiet retreat. It’s a ranch in the 60s and the violence of nature goes along with the violence of people. Cars go by along the road and it seems that there is nothing by the sides of it but the three kids reveal the pulse of that disturbing life beating a few meters from there. AS IN AN ENGAGING TV SERIES EVERY SINGLE STORY REVEALS A DETAIL OF A BIGGER PICTURE.

Esther Cross was born in Buenos Aires in 1961. She studied Literature and received his BA in Psychology. She is a writer and translator. She published along with Felix della Paolera, Bioy Casares at the time of writing (Tusquets, Spain, 1988) and Jorge Luis Borges, about writing (Fuentetaja Editions, Spain, 2007), books of interviews with authors. He published the Crónica de alados y aprendices (Emecé, 1992), La inundación (Emecé, 1993), El banquete de la araña (Tusquets, 1999), Radiana (Emecé, 2007), La señorita Porcel (Siglo XXI, México, 2009) and La mujer que escribió Frankenstein (Emecé, 2013) recognized by critics, readers and booksellers of her country, who selected it as one of the Ten Books of the year at the International Book Fair that year. Her short stories were published in two books, La divina proporción (Emecé,1994) and Kavanagh (Tusquets, 2004), but they also have been published in various anthologies in Argentina and abroad, including Pequeñas Resistencias and Cuentos de amor - also prefaced by her -, for the publishing house Páginas de Espuma (Spain); La selección argentina by Tusquets (Argentina) and Cuentos eróticos de San Valentín by Tusquets (Spain); and many others.

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

Three

brothers

wander

around

the Some of her short stories were published also in abroad magazines and newspapers as ABC Spain, Catch&Release and the Inventory magazine (Princeton University).

countryside. People consider them inoffensive and don’t pay heed to them because they are kids, but they see everything turning soon into witnesses involved in what happens around. They discover their family’s secrets and the local ones. Unlike other city kids of their age, who during the summer vacations go with their family, they spend almost all day away from the eyes of their parents, because customs and

She translated Eleven kinds of loneliness (Emecé, 2002) by Richard Yates, The faces of blood kindred and other stories (Editorial La Compañía) by William Goyen and his complete short stories (Seix Barral, España, 2012).

traditions of countryside keep children and the

She edited and wrote the foreword, along with Ángela Pradelli, La Biblia según veinticinco escritores argentinos (Emecé, 2009), in which 25 Argentenian writers rewrote stories form the Old Testament.

busy parents separated, so the kids are on holidays in a peculiar place of vacation that’s nor a quiet retirement neither a chichi parvenu’s ranch. The countryside they are exploring is a sixties Argentinean one, a community with its butcher shop, blacksmith, little school, country houses and a lot of animals, where the violence of nature got along with the people’s rudeness and the violence of the history of the area which was theatre of the Conquest of the Desert, where the natives were slaughtered by the soldiers less than a century ago.

their wandering around dried out

She was awarded with many prizes as the Firs Premio de la Revista First; the Premio de Cuento de la Revista Plural, de México; the Premio de Cuento Breve de la Revista Puro Cuento; the First Premio Fortabat de novela, the First Premio Regional de Novela, the Thrid Premio Nacional de Novela 2001, the Third Premio Municipal de Libro de Cuentos, the First Premio Internacional de Narrativa 2008 de la Editorial Siglo XXI de México for her novel La señorita Porcel, among others and the grants Fulbright and Civitella Ranieri.

lagoons the kids find arrowheads of the slaughtered natives and a pillbox on a hill and a threat lingers in the air while the police is patrolling the roads…

She collaborates with several medias as Radar, the Página12’s cultural review and the LaMujerdemiVida magazine.

in the episodes of a TV series the

characters met by the kids appear in different stories from a unique perspective as in a puzzle which builds a mysterious and little known world.

THOSE WHO CAME BACK by Esther Cross | Translation by Pablo Toledo

Four left and three came back. Then the house, and everything around it, came to life. My father and the boy’s father, the butler, the foreman, the journeymen, even a hobo who had arrived the day before crossed the gate that led onto the woodland with bright eyes and lowered heads. Latour, the

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

boy’s father, seemed to be in less of a hurry. As if my father was sure that something very bad had happened and the boy’s father was not. Or as if my father thought they were still in time and the boy’s father knew instead that it was too late.

My brothers and Latour’s older brother had run their way back. They walked into the house together, as one, and they jammed at the door. Then my mother asked about the boy: Where’s Martín? All three of them looked down. My father shook my elder brother by the shoulders. My youngest brother stepped aside, with his hands in his pockets. Martín Latour’s brother closed his mouth as if his life depended on it. But he could not hold back a tear. My father whispered something to my mother; then he knelt by the older of the Latours and put his hands on the boy’s shoulder. He talked to him, trying to get the boy to look in his eyes. My mother hurried to the phone and called the father of the Latour brothers. When Latour arrived, my father was almost done with the butler’s instructions.

The Latour brothers and my brothers were not very close. But they still played together from time to time. The Latours were our neighbors, and the families kept running into one another –on the road, in town, at the La Rodada restaurant on Sunday nights– until one day they started meeting more often. That’s why my parents took us to the Latour’s to play some afternoons, and they brought their children over for a few hours. Sometimes, Latour would swing by – that’s the way he put it, swing by– to say hello. He came in his pickup truck, after his ride around the estate, with his two children and the dog in the back. He had a gentleman’s face and hardened hands. That was the combination.

The Latour boys and my brothers looked alike, like the sons of mothers who buy the same kind of clothes. My mother used to dress my brothers up in clothes that copied those of English boys. The mother of the Latours went into town and bought clothes that copied the clothes my mother bought for my brothers – the Latours hardly ever travelled to Buenos Aires. The boys got along rather well. They had a similar gait, with moves that walking around the countryside –jumping across fences, stepping hard and cautiously, stopping to listen– had stamped on their heads. But there were differences. The biggest one was that the Latours lived on the countryside and my brothers didn’t. My brothers knew about jets, building blocks and collectible picture cards. But whenever they wanted to find out what armadillo meat tasted like, why owls sometime appeared hanging from the mill’s weather vane, where trash got burnt, what the sex life of sheep was like and things like that they consulted the Latour living encyclopedia. The other difference was that they did not have a sister. I had no double in that mirror. There was only time between the older of the Latours and Martín. That afternoon, when they found the body of Martín Latour in the woodland, all resemblances were lost.

They found him lying under a tree. He was so young he couldn’t even read. Blood was trickling down his nose. He was face up. His white skin was soiled with dirt. His head was tilted to one side. He seemed asleep. But there was something strange. As if he was sleeping in a sleep of subtle alteration. An impossible sleep, from another planet. Perhaps from a planet where nobody was ever awake. He had snapped his neck. And his mouth was open, as if he had not finished what he was about to say, or as if surprise had been the last word he spoke in his life.

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

I stayed at the house with my mother, my brothers and Martín’s oldest brother. Since we were all quiet, every movement seemed slower and the noises from the kitchen were too clear. Nobody explained anything to me but I understood all too well what was going on (tragic events are clear and exact). The three boys behaved as if they didn’t know each other, each was locked in a world of their own. But when somebody talked to any of them –the maid asked them whether they wanted something to drink, my mother asked them where they had left the horses– it was as if the three of them were but one person. Six eyes and one mouth, shut. That afternoon, grown-ups seemed bigger and their voices boomed with excessive might. The voices of the men carried from the woodland to the house. We could hear the name of the boy. Martin. They were crying out his name, surely funneling their hands. The louder they said it, the further Martín seemed to get from us. Then the worst happened. The mother of the boy had not obeyed her husband. Rather than staying at home, waiting for news as it got darker and the rooms grew larger like shadows, she had come. We heard the sound of wheels on the path, preceded by a dog. Mrs. Latour got out of a jeep. The foreman of her ranch had driven her over.

My mother squeezed her hands and walked out to receive her. I saw them through the window. The woman looked dead straight at her. My mother ran her hands through Mrs. Latour’s shoulder and they walked into the house. The woman’s oldest son stared at her. Worried people who don’t talk are a bit scary. This woman was extremely upset and she didn’t open her mouth. She sat on the armchair, with her eyes open. I think she never blinked. The horse showed up in the sheds, foaming at the mouth and with bulging eyes, before the men returned from the woodland with the body of the boy. It was a rather fat horse. The journeymen called him Coffee, but we did not like that name. We switched names each summer, depending on the books we read or the films or series we watched.

He showed up running through the sheds, with his tack loose and a frenzied face. Campello, the horsebreaker, who had stayed just in case, grabbed him by the reins. Then he unsaddled him, hosed him down and let him go. Campello was sure he had been whipped or scared off. He was so tame it was impossible to imagine him running away. Kids’ stuff, said Campello some days later. But on that day I discovered that even the calmest creature can go crazy. It may run to make an escape without realizing it’s leaving a victim behind. That was what had happened. I couldn’t make sense of it any other way. That horse didn’t have a mean streak. And he was quite a sight. He tossed his head. He kicked at the floor. He pulled his head back as if someone was trying to kill him. But the water and finding himself in a familiar place calmed him down. Or perhaps it was not that. Perhaps horses have no memory. What happened a while ago is one thing and what is happening now is something else. When Campello let him go, the horse rolled in the dirt, as he always does, to dry himself and then ran off. A short dash and then a halt. Again and again. Nothing out of the ordinary. That was his afternoon routine, when he was let loose. But that was not a regular afternoon. The kid who had ridden him was dead, lying in the woodland. Mute forever. Like the horse, my brothers and his brother. Mute.

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

The reconstruction of that near, irreparable past which we didn’t see: the horse bolted, dashed even though Martín Latour was pulling back on the reins, then stopped suddenly to dodge something and Martín Latour was hurled over the horse’s neck, slammed the log, lost his life. That was it. He had lost his life. But we still didn’t know why the horse had bolted. On one hand we had the body of the youngest of the Latours, and on the other hand we had the graveyard silence of his brother and my brothers.

First we heard the dogs. When Latour walked into the house, his wife looked at him. It was as if they had been alone. Latour shook his head, staring at the floor. His wife held her head in her hands. My father came in through the kitchen door. He laid the boy’s body at the couch on the hall by the entrance. He covered it with a jacket. It was no longer necessary, but they still called the doctor. That afternoon, my mother had told me to let the boys go play alone. I had to understand. Sometimes the boys wanted to play on their own. I took offense. At the countryside it didn’t matter that I was a girl, I one more kid. I also realized that they were right. So I said nothing, although I didn’t agree with them either. We had tea together. Then I saw them move, in haste, around the house, like boys do when they are about to go somewhere together. They were organizing themselves, as if they were a body. When they closed the mosquito net, it was a little less hot already.

Mrs. Latour went to the hall by the entrance and then we heard the scream. It was the first. And then you lost count. It felt like a single scream, which stopped when she had to breathe in to carry on. She screamed many times. She didn’t say anything. They were empty screams. My brothers stared at each other and the oldest of the Latour boys closed his eyes. The screams bounced against the walls and so did Mrs. Latour, or at least it felt as if she was doing that down at the hall. We heard thuds, the voices of my father and Mr. Latour calling her by her name. and those screams which were in another dimension, because at that moment Mrs. Latour was unreachable. She wandered around the hall – maybe it wasn’t that she flung herself against the walls, but that she didn’t see them-, gravitating around the lifeless body of her youngest son.

The doctor arrived and even though he knew the boy had died he ran into the house. There was nothing he could do for the boy, but he cared for the mother. We saw them walking her to the jeep. Her husband was holding her by the waist. He set her on the front seat and walked inside again, looking for his eldest son. He was going to take care of the paperwork with my father, and the Latour boy had to return home with his mother.

He told him as if it were an order, but we also understood that if he went he ould be doing his father a favor, andbesides he was going to take care of his mother for the first time in his life. The boy was wearing a blue T-shirt. His face was soiled with dirt, with the dried tracks of his tears. His father grabbed him by the shoulders to take him outside. My brother and the boy looked at each other. Had they meant to play a joke on Martín and therefore had scared his horse? Had the horse freaked out at something they did unintentionally? Maybe they had stepped on a dried branch and that had scared the animal. Or had they fought and hit the horse with their riding whip? Or could it be that Martín had

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

galloped too hard to get away from them, because they were chasing him during play? And what if the boy had run away like that because he had done something to them? On that day, the resemblance between my brothers and the Latour boys broke like a spell but something stronger than the spell bound them, even though they never played together again. I was fortunate to realize it was best not to ask my brothers any questions. I would have hit the silence of truth. THIS STORY PUBLISHED IN AN ARGENTINEAN WRITERS ANTHOLOGY TITLED STORIES TO THE SOUTH OF THE WORLD BY THE

NATIONAL READING PROGRAM OF THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION OF ARGENTINA FOR FRANKFURT BOOK

FAIR 2010 AND HAS BEEN REVIEWED BY THE AUTHOR FOR THIS NEW EDITION. THIS SHORT STORY WAS ALSO PUBLISHED IN:

DIE NACHT DES KOMETEN Argentinische Autorinnen der Gegenwart

TRÁNSITOS Y APROPIACIONES AND

Antología de narrativa argentina contemporánea

Marion Dick (Hrsg)

Selección y prólogo de Claudia Piñeiro

Argentinien in der edition 8, 192 pp.

Textos de Difusión Cultural UNAM Serie Antologías, 227 pp., 2014, México

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

ESTHER CROSS Selection of Novels and short stories books

Literature that ventures where intelligence is no longer comfortable… JUAN IGNACIO BOIDO

Esther Cross was born in Buenos Aires in 1961. She studied Literature and received his BA in Psychology. She is a writer and translator.

She published along with Felix della Paolera, Bioy Casares at the time of writing (Tusquets, Spain, 1988) and Jorge Luis Borges, about writing (Fuentetaja Editions, Spain, 2007), books of interviews with authors. She published the Crónica de alados y aprendices (Emecé, 1992), La inundación (Emecé, 1993), El banquete de la araña (Tusquets, 1999), Radiana (Emecé, 2007), La señorita Porcel (Siglo XXI, México, 2009) and La mujer que escribió Frankenstein (Emecé, 2013) recognized by critics, readers and booksellers of her country, who selected it as one of the Ten Books of the year at the International Book Fair that year. Her short stories were published in two books, La divina proporción (Emecé,1994) and Kavanagh (Tusquets, 2004), but they also have been published in various anthologies in Argentina and abroad, including Pequeñas Resistencias and Cuentos de amor - also prefaced by her -, for the publishing house Páginas de Espuma (Spain); La selección argentina by Tusquets (Argentina) and Cuentos eróticos de San Valentín by Tusquets (Spain); and many others. Some of her short stories were published also in abroad magazines and newspapers as ABC Spain, Catch&Release and the Inventory magazine (Princeton University). She translated Eleven kinds of loneliness (Emecé, 2002) by Richard Yates, The faces of blood kindred and other stories (Editorial La Compañía) by William Goyen and his complete short stories (Seix Barral, España, 2012). She edited and wrote the foreword, along with Ángela Pradelli, La Biblia según veinticinco escritores argentinos (Emecé, 2009), in which 25 Argentenian writers rewrote stories form the Old Testament. In 2002 she released The Insulted and the Injured, a documentary film that she co-wrote, co-directed, and co-produced with Alicia Martínez Pardíes.

She collaborates with several medias as Radar, the Página12’s cultural review and the LaMujerdemiVida magazine. She teaches writing in Casa de Letras, Buenos Aires, and for Fuentetaja, of Spain.

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

Esther Cross LA MUJER QUE FRANKENSTEIN

ESCRIBIÓ

FRANKENSTEIN | THE

WOMAN WHO WROTE

2013 | Emecé | Argentina | 208 p. FINALIST AT PREMIO LECTOR 2014 «HOW A YOUNG GIRL CAME TO THINK OF, AND TO DILATED UPON, SO VERY HIDEOUS AN IDEA? » MARY SHELLEY

Mary Shelley wrote the immortal story of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster when she was 19, but during her life she also has written other novels, short stories, essays, reportages, diaries, letters and, above all, she was a clever witness and protagonist of her time. Shelley was born in a dark age in which she learned to read her name on a tombstone and used to keep the heart of her husband on her desk. In Frankenstein, the iconic novel, she invented a monster made from parts of corpses. Those were the years of Science, of the light of reason and the romantic cult of life, there were also violated tombs and clandestine operating theaters too. People believed in scientific development and at the same time they were afraid of it. Some, like Mary Shelley, were encouraging humankind with books and in their life, despite the fear, to go a little further.

The woman who wrote Frankenstein retraces the steps of the writer, lighting up the streets and cemeteries where Mary Shelley sat to read when she was young and used to meet with her lovers, while the surgeon practiced the first dissections in front of an audience and the sleep of reason produced monsters. IT COULD BE READ AS A NOVEL, BUT IT’S NOT FICTION. ITS SOURCES ARE REAL, BUT THEY HAVE A QUITE LITERARY CHARACTER. IT TELLS ABOUT THE LIFE OF

MARY SHELLEY BUT IT’S NOT A BIOGRAPHY IN THE TRADITIONAL SENSE... AN EXCITING UNCLASSIFIABLE BOOK.

The woman who wrote Frankenstein is not a simple biography, it’s the portrait of an era in which medicine and science were growing and experimenting to understand life through death as in Frankenstein, the masterpiece by Mary Shelley, to whom did not lack neither intelligence nor passions or personal tragedies to tell it.

Cross

decided to let the documentary materials to speak as fiction, she has not written a

comprehensive biography of Mary Shelley, but rather a tale of her life focused on her close relationship with death and the amazing thing is that it seems an engaging novel.

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

The book begins with a quote from the introduction of Mary Shelley’s own novel: «how a young girl came to think of, and to dilate upon, so very hideous an idea?». Cross’s book found its first impulse in attempting to answer this question, Mary Shelley indeed was a teenager when she conceived her sinister "creature". The work spawns, of course, from her imagination, but has the macabre ting of the Century in which she was living. It was the time when resurrectionists wanted to breathe life into inert matter from electricity, it was time for grave robbers who dug up bodies to satisfy the curiosity of anatomical dissectors and cemeteries were either places for peacefully walking or dark places where at night the tombs became objects of desire. It was also the time of the great collections of Anatomy and the time when there were no painkillers and no anesthesia so the skill of a surgeon consisted mainly to be fast to save the patient the most frightening time of suffering. Science, superstition, life, pain, hope and death were strongly tied together and Mary was the perfect storyteller for that, why she was marked by death since childhood. She learned to spell her name on the grave of the mother and her mother was exactly like her. Of the four children she had only one survived and her husband, the poet Percy Shelley, died in a shipwreck when he was 29: his body was cremated on the beach, but through a friend Mary could have back his heart to wrap it in the first page of a poem and carry it with her in a nomadic life. Cemeteries were her “genre”, gothic wasn’t a literary topic but a way of life to her.

ESTHER CROSS LA SEÑORITA PORCEL | MISS PORCEL 2009 | Siglo XXI | Mexico City| pp.141 WINNER OF THE 6TH INTERNATIONAL ESSAY AND FICTION PRIZE BY SIGLO XXI. IN THE WORLD THERE IS NO JUSTICE, BUT SOME DEBTS COULD BE PAID OFF, SO IT IS ESTABLISHED… A STORY OF A GRUDGE SOUL … ESTHER CROSS PORTRAYS THE MISERIES OF AN OLIGARCHY IN DECLINE DURING THE FEROCIOUS CRISIS OF

2001.

Miss Porcel is fighting for her life in front of an ATM and the woman who tried to kill her looks at her and tells us what she sees. Money, power, subtle violence, class codes and family rules are the main themes of this novel that is set in a creepy Buenos Aires, the capital city of a country that will soon get in the street and riot.

Miss Porcel is the story of a woman who discovers to be too clever to be right winged and too rich to be left winged, a woman who manages to solve this conflict paying a really exorbitant price.

The novel develops the issue of the “rich poor country, always resentful”. It speaks with clarity and irony but works like a recalcitrant psycho with a bullet loaded soul. The woman who tells us the

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

story recounts her revenge against Ema Ponciana Porcel de Peralta, a friend-enemy of her family. The story goes through two paths, which leads to tremendous aggression at an ATM in the neighborhood of Recoleta, and what happens after the hospitalization of the elderly Miss Porcel.

The novel was the winner of the 6th International Essay and Fiction Prize by Siglo XXI, the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the Autonomous University of Sinaloa and the College of Sinaloa. «…Esther Cross grew up two blocks from the house of Bioy Casares and Silvina Ocampo. Many times when she was a child she saw those authors shopping in the neighborhood grocery store while she was rocking on a swing in the Recoleta's playground. Little Esther, as like the protagonist of her novel, from the back and forth of the swing, already knew how to look beyond appearances, she sensed already the essential motion for both parties to live together: the facade and the substance which inhabits it. She saw the dead in the country’s most famous cemetery and at, the same time, outside, in the streets, the one who walked with the easiness of knowing that it would be their final destination. The names on those tombstones were already written, from the first life’s day. The heart of my neighborhood is a graveyard, says the narrator of “Miss Porcel”. Walking through those streets, from early childhood, Esther Cross could recognize among crosses and chapels, the living and the dead, and tell their pittance: the only thing they have ever known, the one that digs them inside.» LUCIANA DE MELLO | RADAR LIBROS PRESS REVIEW + INTERVIEW IN SPANISH: WWW.TINYURL.COM/Y8Z6E2G INTERVIEW IN ENGLISH IN THE LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS: WWW.TINY.CC/WN0UCX

ESTHER CROSS RADIANA 2007 | EMECÉ | ARGENTINA | PP. 144 2017 FORTHCOMING NEW EDITION | 8VO LOCO & TREN EN MOVIMIENTO| ARGENTINA ONLY A CITY THAT IS HOME TO WEIRD DOCTORS, INVENTORS WHO CHEAT, THORNY ARTISTS, SPIRITUALISTS, GAMBLING BILLIONAIRES AND ROMANTIC EMPLOYEES CAN GIVE RISE TO A SATIRICAL AND SENTIMENTAL FABLE AS RADIANA.

On the background of the passage between nineteenth and twentieth century, Esther Cross intrigues a plot about time, the lateness of love and the power of fantasy. As the pianist Rita Lavenza loses control of his hands and of their masterful performances, professor Elmer Dus, her devoted husband, conducts an experiment that will, as he says, distort the course of scientific research. Thanks to the

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

financial support of Barbara Astor, an aristocrat patron, the scientist creates in the image and likeness of his wife the first robot in history.

Written

with humor and wit, this novel explores, with more irony than apprehension, the

possibilities of the marital andextramarital relationships, through science and art, medicine and death and above all writing and future. ANYONE WHO WISH TO FIND IN LITERATURE A SPACE OF PLEASURE AND REFLECTION, WHERE THE MOOD IS PLACED IN THE FOREGROUND AND EVENTS HAPPEN WITH CINEMATIC PRECISION, MUST READ

RADIANA.

Right from the title, we can not avoid to think about the eponymous play by the Spanish Agustín Ortíz (1533), but that only because the title matches and both texts have the comedy cadence. Cross’ Radiana, away from the Ortíz’ one, starts from the building of a robot by a flamboyant inventor and from this premise it jumps into areas that overstep the imagination of reality. This time, the chosen format to tell us the story is the nouvelle, a literary genre unpracticed by local writers, but which is, without doubt, a success a the time of write: few characters, a main topic (creating a being) and two sub-themes (love and power) that are intertwined, in this way we don’t lose sight of the thread which leads us through the maze of words. WITH A UNIQUE STYLE THAT HAS WELL EARNED HER THE RECOGNITION AND THE PLACE SHE OCCUPIES IN ARGENTINEAN LITERATURE, ESTHER CROSS OFFERS AN AMAZING TEXT THOUGHT TO BE PURE CREATION.

History may well happen after the First World War when scientism was increasingly growing, from the need for new discoveries. We may be witnessing a high middle class that is showing its life and conflict in action, while we contemplate the lives of those who seek a place in the world and how they interact with the upper classes. From this space time location, the author doesn’t deprives us of nothing: an almost crazy scientist - husband, an harmed pianist, a dazzling and adventurous patron, a robot under construction, a faithful butler, a chef and model in disgrace, and other characters providing a cool colorful and vivacious distant time, but recovered and restored by this novel. RADIANA IS A GREAT NOVEL. WRITTEN IN FORTY-FIVE SHORT CHAPTERS, WITH TOWERING, ABSURD AND SURREAL HUMOR. SUBTLE AND AUSTERE, FULL OF RICH IRONY. IT WAS CREATED TO REMIND US THAT THE PATH OF LITERATURE IS REFLECTION BUT IT CAN ALSO BE THE WAY TO ENJOYMENT AND PLEASURE; SHORTCUT BETWEEN EMOTIONS, THOUGHT AND MAGIC, THE ROAD QUICKLY AND SAFELY TO HAPPY IMAGINATION.

Even if the main character is a robot, the novel is not a science fiction one. It not intends to give us a report on the problem of biotechnology’s dehumanization, but, by contrast, it shows that automation of man happens naturally in the way society has robotized us from cultural and social patterns. Radiana is a logical consequence, the final product, the following utterance, the word made metal accusing the existing robotics in ourselves. Performed repetitions of paragraphs and sentences

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

hides the shadow of horror. A repeated pattern triggers a laugh, but the constant and mechanized is frightening because it lost humanity and turns into something uncanny. CRITICAL REVIEW IN SPANISH: WWW.TINYURL.COM/O6RVWBP

| WWW.TINYURL.COM/NVTHUTT

ESTHER CROSS KAVANAGH 2004 | TUSQUETS | MADRID | 176 P. Kavanaugh by EstherCross. One of the best books I ever read. STEPHEN PAGE … Kavanagh looks like a book of short stories linked one to each other by the protagonists whose lives pass between the walls of a building which has increasingly become a monument and a symbol… For its anecdotal attitude, for the harmonic variety of characters that populates it, for the austerity with which it develops, for the delicacy with which captures each solitude, every story can and deserves, to be read independently. But it would like watching a movie without music: because it’s in the interstices, in the way Cross gets in and out of each story as the thread that sews the spine of the book, where, little by little, the true picture of these eleven stories woven by one voice appears… JUAN IGNACIO BOIDO

The Wilkinsons - great drinkers -, Mr. Olenski - Conrad’s translator, the Pasos and the Rentzel crossing couples - and Crusades and sisters Mc Lean have something in common: they live in the same building. Kavanagh is the sum of their stories and of the woman who tells them sitting in front of a typewriter, with his dog. The group lives in an involuntary and permanent meeting. Life has them in the elevator, in the hallways and in difficult situations, gather them in the mouth of Paredes, the doorman, and in the eyes of the tourists who contemplate Kavanagh from the square. The stories build up a building that works as a neighborhood and discovers the greatness and pittance of the characters that comprise it. … An elegant sense of humor and a Chekhovian attitude dominate the whole book. Cross prefers to suggest instead of saying too much and in most cases few elements are enough to build a solid frame that slide easily from habitual to absurd, under the aegis of a poetic irony that discovers the characters’ small tragedies without stripping them of their dignity.

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

… Esther Cross is the author of the novels The Flood (1993 Fortabat Prize and First Regional Award) and The Feast of the Spider (1999, Third National Award), among other works. With Kavanagh, she displays a structure that sometimes resembles a film montage. FELIPE FERNÁNDEZ | LA NACIÓN - 2004 CRITICAL REVIEW IN SPANISH HTTP://TINYURL.COM/ZZ97GNX

| HTTP://TINYURL.COM/J88A4MK | HTTP://TINYURL.COM/H5AO9L5

ESTHER CROSS EL BANQUETE DE LA ARAÑA | THE FEAST OF THE SPIDER 1999 | TUSQUETS | BARCELONA | 238 P.

FULL OF HUMOR AND SOPHISTICATION, THE FEAST OF THE SPIDER IS BOTH A SHREWD REFLECTION ON THE ART WORLD AND A BILDUNGSROMAN. WITH THIS BOOK, ESTHER CROSS STRENGTHENS ONE OF THE MOST PERSONAL NARRATIVE PROJECTS OF THE CURRENT ARGENTINEAN LITERATURE.

For

generations, the family of Celina Dorval proudly maintains two

distinctive features: the pointed ears and a passion for art. But Dorval are not critical collectors but bizarre and enthusiastic fetishists, responsible for the theft or mutilation of great culture’s icons as La Gioconda, the Pity or The Night Watch. Heir of the elf ears, Celina rejects the family vandalism and dedicated herself to track its causes. In this search, she finds love, a handful of bitter truths and a glimpse of herself.

Cross has published unique novels such as Radiana and La señorita Porcel, a fictionalized biography of Mary Shelley (The woman who wrote Frankenstein), books of short stories and essays. In her writing, which depicts closed worlds, lays the surprise of a gentle humor among characters with the slow setting of a tragedy or, better to say, the shadow projected by tragedy… DANIEL GIGENA | LA NACIÓN | 2016

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

LEANDRO ÁVALOS BLACHA Una casa de pié | A standing house Previously Unrelased | 106.390 characters

A STANDING HOUSE TELLS THE ENGAGING STORY OF A HAUNTED HOUSE WHERE DISTURBING ATMOSPHERE HIDE UNEXPECTED CHARACTERS.

The house was the scene of a fire that hardly affected the former inhabitants, and revealed the clandestine spinning mill in the basement, where all the Bolivian immigrant workers died.

The house is bought and reconstructed by the new rich owners who turn it into a three floor luxury

villa with cellar, attic and a huge park. In the basement, the son of the new owners meets the ghost of Mari Luz, a little girl who died in the fire. The ghost of the dead little seamstress appears to be almost the same age of the protagonist and only he could see her. Soon she becomes his only companion, along with his mate Ramiro, another kid who’s very intrigued by the House’s story.

The parents of the protagonist are angry with him because they think that the stories about the

ghost girl are only fantasies of a child about an imaginary friend. Mari Luz involves soon the protagonist in her jokes as “partner in crime” or as the target of them.

She tells the protagonist of her sad story but something seems missing. The family who used to

live in the house before the new one ruled the spinning mill with iron fist, but the ghost girl seems particularly obsessed by the fate of the former owner’s son, Tomás, who was the same age of the protagonist when, during the fire, shot some women who were about to escape from the basement. Mari Luz doesn’t blame him and mysteriously justifies him. The ghost girl makes the protagonist feel what painfully happened to her. She makes him live the fire experience and the young boy attempts to stop Tomas from shooting, but Mari Luz hurts him to avoid it. Their relationship swings between friendship and distrust and soon the protagonist won't’ to be haunted by her anymore and begins to think how he could help her finding peace, so he asks Mari Luz if it’s possible for her to leave the house and how. She tells him she can’t. The only way is to find her someone who could be a different companion, so someone in the house has to die. Mari Luz tells him she needs a young friend as another kid. The protagonist refuses the idea of killing his friend Ramiro and begins to think he has to find Tomás… THE NOVEL LIES AT THE CROSSROADS BETWEEN HAUNTED HOUSES AND GHOST STORIES WITH A SLASHER HORROR ATTITUDE AS WELL AS A SOCIAL DENUNCIATION STORY.

Leandro Ávalos Blacha was born in Quilmes, Argentina, in 1980. As journalist he works and lives in Buenos Aires. He won the award Nueva Narrativa Sudaca Border 2005 with “Serialismo” (Eloísa Cartonera) and in 2007 the award Indio Rico with “Berazachussetts”, published in France first by Asphalte and them by Folio, (Gallimard). His short novel “Medianera” (Eduvin), was also translated in French by Asphalte. In 2014, he was a guest of the Salon du livre de Paris and in the 14th edition of the festival Imaginales.

ALEJANDRO AGRESTI Rachel Patagonia | El Sur de Rachel

Previously Unrelased | 59.600 words | 28 chapters A VIOLINIST IN SEARCH OF HERSELF IN AN ENGAGING STORY WHERE THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS DISCOVERING WHAT IT MEANS TO BE ALIVE. THE AUTHOR DEPICTS IN A KIND OF EPISTOLARY NOVEL ABOUT FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS, TWO YOUNG SELF DISCOVERING WOMEN’S ANXIETIES AND EXPECTATIONS. Alejandro Agresti was born in 1961 in Buenos Aires. He’s an Argentine writer, film director and producer. At the age of 23 he wrote and direct his first movie, El hombre que ganó la razón (The man who gained reason), selected by the Berlin Film Festival and distributed in Europe. Agresti settled in Holland and worked between Europe and Argentina. In 1986 he wrote and performed El amor es una mujer gorda (Love is a fat woman) that won several international awards (Special Jury Prize at the Nederlands Film Festival and Best New director at San Sebastian International Film Festival 1987 and a nomination at Best Feature Film at the Torino International Festival of Young Cinema 1987) and was hailed by the Argentinean critics as the first movie that deal without compromises with the desaparecidos’ issue. In 1989 he directed, with European funding in Argentina, Boda Secreta (Secret Wedding) premiered in the UK and chosen by critics as one of the two best films of 1990 along with Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors. In the nineties, Agresti wrote and directed several European films: Luba, Modern Crimes, Everybody wants to help Ernst and Just Friends, some shot in English and some other in Dutch. Then he directed El Acto en Cuestión (The act in question) filmed in nine European countries and selected by the Cannes Film Festival official section; Buenos Aires Vice Versa (Argentina), La Cruz and Wind with the Gone that won the Golden Seashell at the San Sebastian Film Festival, a Silver Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival, two awards at the Havana Film Festival and a Golden Tulip at the Istanbul International Film Festival. In 1999, he wrote and directed A Night with Sabrina Love, with Cecilia Roth. Between 2000 and 2001 he wrote and directed Valentín, an internationally acclaimed movie distributed by Miramax. Soon he was invited to write and direct in Hollywood hired by Warner Bros. Agresti changed his residence from The Hague to Los Angeles where he rewrote and directed The Lake House, starring Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves, he worked also as a Script Doctor for Warner Bros and John Cusack and Kelsey Grammer’s producer, among others. Agresti published three novels: El Acto en Questión (1983), La Sonrisa no Basta (Norma, Argentina, 1998), Eva Braun de Arroyito (Planeta, Argentina, 2010), he was also awarded by the Huelva and Sitges festivals and received the prize ASECAM, the club of film writers of Spain, and the ONDAS, for the better European TV miniseries with El Acto en Cuestión.

Written

while reviewing The Lake House, Agresti’s movie with Keanu Reeves and Sandra

Bullock, Rachel Patagonia is the exploration of two sister’s journey on the way of self-discovery after experiencing loss and failure in love.

After a series of meetings with spectators of viewing groups for the launch of his movie, the author reflects about an absorbing novel themes that interest the female audience: family relationships, loss, work as an expression of a passion, finding yourself, the exotic locations and the desire for adventure and change.

One sister is traveling through Patagonia in pursuit of a new life and in the meantime she’s writing letters to her mother – she doesn’t know she’s dead – which are getting read by the other sister in her stagnant life in NYC.

Rachel is a musician, a violinist who’s struggling with alcohol and brutal honesty, issues that pushed Walter, her husband, to leave her for her sister Alice. The two sisters didn’t talk to each other for more than two years, but now those letters that Alice reads with the eyes of her own mother makes her understand what’s the real Rachel’s soul along with her’s. The adventures of Rachel in Patagonia sparks in her sister the feeling she’s living a plastic and boring life in her NYC upper-class environment.

The author weaves an engaging plot that delves into the feelings of the protagonists to unravel those of the reader.

Originally drawn up in English, the novel was then re-written in Spanish. The two versions differ slightly, while the first one is intended for the English-speaking readers, the second one is aimed at readers who believe they have greater familiarity with Patagonia, its people, its customs and traditions. THE WRITER, SCREENWRITER AND FILM DIRECTOR, HAS ALSO MADE A FILM ADAPTATION OF THIS NOVEL WHICH IS UNDER EVALUATION BY SEVERAL FILM PRODUCERS.

PRESS

http://articles.latimes.com/keyword/alejandro-agresti http://variety.com/t/alejandro-agresti/ http://www.elcultural.com/revista/cine/Alejandro-Agresti/6785 http://tinyurl.com/zlpmrfr http://tinyurl.com/jq54cm3

ITALIAN EXCERPTS FROM LA

SONRISA NO BASTA

http://tinyurl.com/gw6mx87 http://tinyurl.com/h5p9lpl

ALEJANDRO AGRESTI El Perfume de los Libros | Scent of Books Previously Unrelased | 45.500 words | 21 chapters

AN EXQUISITE COMEDY DRAMA ABOUT FRIENDSHIP WRITTEN WITH A DELICATE MASTER TOUCH THAT UNRAVELS ITSELF BETWEEN RIVALRY AND CONFESSIONS OF FOUR MEN WHO HAVE SHARED THEIR LIVES.

With his characters Agresti depicts the city of Buenos Aires from the second half of XX century until today. The protagonists' issues, jobs, language, behaviors and attitudes distill the essence of the so called PORTEÑO.

The bright and tender irony with which the author describes what the characters regret to have been done or not done. Their yearnings, their fears, their secrets, rivalries, alliances enrich a well-hatched plot with unexpected twists which keep the story engaging.

When the old Wiegergans dies his three best friends Vincent, Pablo, and Seymour inherit an old bookstore containing thousand of books. While attempting to divide their gigantic inheritance Vincent finds his first novel, badly deteriorated, with sections almost completely destroyed. “The Scent of Taste” is about his first love, Amalia, whom he met more than 30 years before, in a dilapidated wine shop. The more he reads, the more his memories become confused. Vincent decides to travel to the North of Italy, where he thinks he last saw Amalia... but who will he find? THE SHOOTING OF THE MOVIE HAS BEEN ALREADY ANNOUNCED BY IMDB IN APRIL

2016.

PRESS

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3512452/?ref_=nm_flmg_dr_1 http://articles.latimes.com/keyword/alejandro-agresti http://variety.com/t/alejandro-agresti/ http://www.elcultural.com/revista/cine/Alejandro-Agresti/6785 http://tinyurl.com/zlpmrfr http://tinyurl.com/jq54cm3

ITALIAN EXCERPTS FROM

LA SONRISA NO BASTA

http://tinyurl.com/gw6mx87 http://tinyurl.com/h5p9lpl

Alejandro Agresti was born in 1961 in Buenos Aires. He’s an Argentine writer, film director and producer. At the age of 23 he wrote and direct his first movie, El hombre que ganó la razón (The man who gained reason), selected by the Berlin Film Festival and distributed in Europe. Agresti settled in Holland and worked between Europe and Argentina. In 1986 he wrote and performed El amor es una mujer gorda (Love is a fat woman) that won several international awards (Special Jury Prize at the Nederlands Film Festival and Best New director at San Sebastian International Film Festival 1987 and a nomination at Best Feature Film at the Torino International Festival of Young Cinema 1987) and was hailed by the Argentinean critics as the first movie that deal without compromises with the desaparecidos’ issue. In 1989 he directed, with European funding in Argentina, Boda Secreta (Secret Wedding) premiered in the UK and chosen by critics as one of the two best films of 1990 along with Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors. In the nineties, Agresti wrote and directed several European films: Luba, Modern Crimes, Everybody wants to help Ernst and Just Friends, some shot in English and some other in Dutch. Then he directed El Acto en Cuestión (The act in question) filmed in nine European countries and selected by the Cannes Film Festival official section; Buenos Aires Vice Versa (Argentina), La Cruz and Wind with the Gone that won the Golden Seashell at the San Sebastian Film Festival, a Silver Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival, two awards at the Havana Film Festival and a Golden Tulip at the Istanbul International Film Festival. In 1999, he wrote and directed A Night with Sabrina Love, with Cecilia Roth. Between 2000 and 2001 he wrote and directed Valentín, an internationally acclaimed movie distributed by Miramax. Soon he was invited to write and direct in Hollywood hired by Warner Bros. Agresti changed his residence from The Hague to Los Angeles where he rewrote and directed The Lake House, starring Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves, he worked also as a Script Doctor for Warner Bros and John Cusack and Kelsey Grammer’s producer, among others. Agresti published three novels: El Acto en Questión (1983), La Sonrisa no Basta (Norma, Argentina, 1998), Eva Braun de Arroyito (Planeta, Argentina, 2010). He was also awarded by the Huelva and Sitges festivals and received the prize ASECAM, the club of film writers of Spain, and the ONDAS, for the better European TV miniseries with El Acto en Cuestión.

Vera Fogwill Buenos, limpios & lindos | Good, clean & fun August 2013 | Seix Barral | Argentina | 392 pp.

Finalist at the Anagrama’s Premio Herralde 2012 Awarded in 2015 with the Cultural Patronage Award from the Government of the City of Buenos Aires FOGWILL’S DEBUT NOVEL IS AMONG THE MOST NOTABLE PUBLISHING EVENTS TO TAKE PLACE IN ARGENTINA IN THE LAST DECADE. THE AUTHOR HAS BEEN PROCLAIMED AS ONE OF THE MOST DISTINGUISHED AND INFLUENTIAL WOMEN IN THE COUNTRY BY THE MAJOR NEWSPAPER

ARGENTINE

CLARÍN.

Coral Novel “Good, clean & fun” whitewashes cutely Ettore Scola’s grotesque to overshadow it better. It has the metastatic frenzy of Paul Thomas Anderson’s movies and the trash echoes of Harmony Korine’s world, but here cinema is a compulsion or a nightmare, not an influence. “Good, clean & fun” quotes Dostoyevsky as well The Virgin Suicides, and turns the disaster (personal, familiar, social) in an almost operatic event. ALAN PAUL

Vera Fogwill is an internationally appraised Argentine artist, winner of several awards as stage and movie actress, director, writer (screenwriter and playwright) and as an artistic producer. Her film Las mantenidas sin sueños | Kept and dreamless, which she produced, wrote, co-directed and acted in has become the most awarded Opera Prima (First Work) in the history of Argentina’s Cinema. It run in the short list for the Golden Globe Award for "Best Foreign Language Film” in the United States in 2005. Nominated for the Golden Globe by the "International Los Angeles LALIFF Film Festival" where it won both “Best Film Award” and “Best Opera Prima” at the festival. As author and writer she had a column in the“No” the young reader section of newspaper Página 12 in 1999 and has published even articles in the Cultural Section and in the “Radar Libros” section, in the magazine Haciendo Cine and the magazine Enlaces. Her tales have been edited in international female writer’s collections. Among this collections are: No somos Perfectas from the Editorial del Nuevo Extremo. In August of 2013 Publishers Planeta and Seix Barral published her novel “Buenos, lindos y limpios” all over Latin America.

Vera Fogwill’s eclectic Good, Clean & Fun presents a choral novel where a series of conflicted voices can be heard. The style of the novel can be described as a kind of literary zapping, as the narrator sees and cinematographically recounts the lives and the decisions that led to the demise of the characters in an almost classic tragi-comedy. Mysteriously suspended—as if by magic—at the moment of her death, the narrator tells her own story, as well as those of a wide cast of seemingly unrelated characters who have apparently died on the same day and who she is able to observe from her enigmatic in-between state. As the novel unfolds, the narrative goes in unexpected directions, weaving a complex plot full of suspense and action. In the process, the novel reveals a multi-faceted, contemporary Buenos Aires, and a wide range of the city’s inhabitants, stories and perspectives.

A Muslim teenage girl who grows up in a modernized family, in a secular society, which she is trying to “save.” Another teenage girl obsessed with getting a nose job in her confused, yet sympathetic desire to resemble her adoptive mother. A Jewish teenage girl with breast implants and a newly discovered sexual popularity in school. A dwarf businessman who teaches “time management” seminars. The dwarf’s son, a teenage boy who dreams of becoming a professional goalie in a European soccer club. A paranoid scientist, afraid for her life, fleeing her husband and other imagined (or real?) aggressors. A veteran from the Malvinas/Falkland Islands War who tries to pass his love of guns on to his teenage son. An elderly couple who, against all odds, seemingly find love toward the end of their long lives. The interrelated, crossing lives of these and other characters are told by the narrator in stories that at times are strikingly realistic, others far-fetched or surreal, others as if ripped from the headlines. Told in a fast, engaging style, with vivid descriptions and a combination of hyper-realism and elements of the fantastic or magical realism, reading the novel resembles the feel of watching the latest episode of one’s favorite HBO, Showtime or Netflix series.

The multiplicity of voices, perspectives and points of view in Vera Fogwill’s Good, Clean & Fun, provides singular views and insights into today’s cosmopolitan Latin American society. In this sense, the novel is reminiscent of Roberto Bolaño’s work, but seen through a woman’s eyes, and with large doses of humor, dynamism, and surprising twists and turns. Good, Clean & Fun is unique and contemporary even as it addresses timeless, universal themes, such as love, desire, violence, religion, and belief. PRESS “Excessive, where excess is a plus, a gorgeous surplus of meaning: that plus lays in the prose that combines with insolence hyperliterature, ludic approach, oral and visual communication.” Mauro Libertella, Ñ, Revista de Cultura, Diario Clarín.

“The first novel by Vera Fogwill hails a consolidated writer, versatile, with a disenchanted look. A storytelling machine.” Patricio Zunini, Eterna Cadencia. “Omniscient and cynical, it speaks of the existential absurdity with impressive skill and depth. It has the structure and approach of a movie.” Mariana Sandez, Ñ, Revista Cultura, Diario Clarín.

Jógvan Isaksen Crime fiction from Faroe Islands Jógvan Isaksen was born in Tórshavn in 1950 and has a Master of Arts in Nordic literature. Since 1986, he has been employed at the University of Copenhagen, while concurrently editing periodicals. Since 1978, he has been head of the publishing house Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins.

Isaksen has written more than 40 books, two-thirds of which are about Faroese literature and art, and one third of which are crime novels. With the crime novel Blíð er summarnátt á Føroyalandi | Gentle is the Faroese summer’s night from 1990, he found his way to a broader audience, and ever since, he has been the top selling author in the Faroe Islands. Especially the eight books about Hannis Martinsson, a reporter and consultant, have consolidated his reputation, and in 2012.

With his eight book series about the journalist and consultant Hannis Martinsson, Jógvan Isaksen became the top selling author in the Faroe Islands. In 2012 he began a new series with police prosecutor William Hammer as the main character. The first volume is called Tann fimti maðurin | The Fifth Man, and the second volume, Prædikarin | The Preacher, is scheduled for publication in November 2013.

A number of Jógvan Isaksen’s books have been translated into Danish, Icelandic and German. English version of

Recognitions and prizes 1994 Faroese Literature Prize (Bókmentavirðisløn M.A. Jacobsens) for non-frction 2006 Faroese Cultural Prize (Heiðursgáva landsins, DKK 75.000). 2011 Faroese Literature Prize (Bókmentavirðisløn M.A.Jacobsens) for his work at the Faroese publication house Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins by publishing Faroese books

Krossmessa | Walpurgis Tide was published at the beginning of February 2016.

The story of Isaksen’s Adventus Domini was included by Andrea di Robilant in his best seller Irresistible North (Knopf) / Venetian Navigators (Faber) published in 2011.

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

A CRIME NOVELS’ HISTORY AT MYRÐA VIÐ SKRIVARABORÐIÐ | MURDERING AT THE DESK 2014: Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins | 141 pp.

Murdering

AT MYRÐA VIÐ SKRIVARABORÐIÐ

at the desk come after a lecture that the Nordic House in

JÓGVAN ISAKSEN

Tórshavn asked to the author, which will take place in conjunction with Bókadagar 2014. Murdering at the desk is an overview (with images and pictures) of the most important crime authors and novels. Jogvan Isaksen tells us about the world of crime fiction writers and their characters in more than 200 portraits from Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie to Raymond Chandler, from Patricia Highsmith to Michael Connelly, with a particular attention to the books with nordic countries setting and authors from those lands.

CRIME NOVELS THE COLD CASE OF WILLIAM HAMMER AND THE DEPARTMENT OF LOST CAUSES TANN FIMTI MAÐURIN | THE FIFTH MAN 2012 - Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins 2014 - Danish translation by the author available, Den femte mand.

The first volume was published in 2012 and was the overall bestseller in the Faroe Islands, the second is going to be published in November. The plan is to write a whole series about the Department of Lost Causes in the Faroe Islands.

William Hammer is born in the Faroe Islands, at the age of 20 he joined the Danish army and became a green beret in a combat support regiment. After ten years of service in ex Yugoslavia, Iraq and Afghanistan he left the army, studied law and for some years he worked for the Danish intelligence service. After an unhappy incident he was sent back to his native Tórshavn, the capital of the Faroe Islands, as a police prosecutor. He’s not well-accepted in town and set his own small department in the old fortress by the sea. There he is joined by two likewise unpopular young police officers, a woman and a man who are both homosexuals and are considered kind of a black sheep by the colleagues.

The relationship between them and Hammer is stormy a harsh, but they will begin to know each other and work together fine. The young police officer, Dejan Vuković, is by the way born in Serbia but she grow up in a Faroese village.

William Hammer, Dejan Vuković and Gunnleyg Olsen (a master in martial arts) form a special department DLC – Department of Lost Causes. The name origins from that they are only given completely hopeless cold cases, which no-one expects them to solve. Their first case involved a body found in the Seventies linked in some ways to WWII.

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

PRÆDIKARIN | THE PREACHER MAN JÓGVAN ISAKSEN

2013 - Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins.

The second novel about the police prosecutor Willam Hammer is in the pipeline.

CRIME NOVELS THE HANNIS MARTINSSON’S COLLECTION BLÍÐ ER SUMMARNÁTT Á FØROYALANDI | GENTLE FAROESE SUMMER’S NIGHT

IS THE

1990 - Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins 1991 – Danish: Blid er den færøske sommernat, Torgard 1994 – Icelandic Ljuf Er Sumarnott i Faereyjum, Uglan 2011 – Danish: Blid er den færøske sommernat, 2. edition, paperback. Torgard 1995 – German: Mild ist die färöische Sommernacht, Pettersson, Münster 2006 – German: Neuausgabe: Endstation Färöer, Grafrt 2013 – Egypt and arabic speaking countries (rights sold to Sphynx)

During a midsummer celebration in the Faroese mountains, the journalist Sonja Pætursdóttir falls from the edge of the plateau. An accident, according to the police report. A few days later her boyfriend Hugo breaks his neck falling down the basement stairs. Too many accidents for Copenhagen based reporter Hannis Martinsson, who scents a big story behind those deaths because Sonja was even seen several times on board a schooner from Paraguay, which was anchored for a few weeks in Tórshavn harbor and its crew behaving was very strange...

GRÁUR OKTOBER | GRAY OCTOBER 1994 – Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins 1994 – Icelandic: Grár október, Uglan 1995 – Danish: Grå oktober, Torgard 2011 – Danish: Grå oktober, 2. udgave, paperback, Torgard 2007 – German: Option Färöer, Grafrt 2014 – Egypt and arabic speaking countries (rights sold to Sphynx) 2016 - English: Walpurgis Tide, Norvik Press

Four murders in two weeks: isn’t it too much for a small group of islands such as the Faroe? It is exactly what the reporter Hannis Martinsson ask himself, so he began to find out what an anchorwoman, a young hobo, a payroll accountant and a christian newspaper columnist had in commons.

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

KROSSMESSA | WALPURGIS TIDE 2005 - Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins 2009 – Danish: Korsmesse, Torgard 2011 – Danish: Korsmesse, 2. udgave, paperback. Torgard 2016 - English, Walpurgis Tide, Norvik Press

After

the traditional Grindadrap (whale hunting and slaughter) two young

environmental activists were found dead between the whale corpses in Tórshavn. The news travels fast around the world and many animal welfare organizations are ready to rise up against the traditional Faroese whaling. Former journalist and current "consultant" Hannis Martinsson receives a visit by Mark Robbins, a member of the english environmental organization Guardians of the Sea. The man asks Martinsson to help him fo find out who killed the two environmentalists and why. Martinsson is not thrilled to be working for a foreign organization but he is a fierce opponent of the Grindadrap, so he accepts to help Mr. Robbins and the Guardians of the Sea… ABOUT

KROSSMESSA | WALPURGIS TIDE

… Early on in Walpurgis Tide, its narrator and reluctant detective Hannes Martinsson is challenged by a British activist to help find the killer behind two deaths related to the hunt, or the country will be ‘shut down.’ The international environmentalists in Jogvan Isaken’s novel verge on caricatures, but then this is, perhaps, merely the logical corollary of the novel’s approach to the Faroes themselves. What the international environmentalists share with the Lutheran churchgoers of the Faroes is a moral certainty in tandem with their identity. If Lutheranism is the Faroese national religion, environmentalism is the global post-national religion…. … This friction between the inside and the outside is the crux of Walpurgis Tide. Isaksen’s reluctant hero is tasked with being the international community’s inside man in a complex balancing act, asking questions of both his employers and his countrymen. A crime has been committed, but as Isaksen makes clear, understanding how and why is a two-way street. DOMINIC HINDE

ADVENTUS DOMINI | ADVENTUS DOMINI 2006 - Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins

first prologue tells of a crusader who survived the Muslims

occupation of Malta, a second one tells the wreckage of a British transport ship, which sank in 1941 in the Faroe Islands. Shortly before Christmas Hannis Martinsson is contacted by a spokeperson of the Grand Master of the Order of Malta who offers him a job. Shortly after, the man will be found beheaded in a hotel room in Tórshavn. From that moment on a series of violent events that find their origin in the story of the crusader and in the sunken

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

WWII ship kickstart the plot, a plot in wich also the Kirkjubøur Cathedral and the medieval plague play primary roles.

METUSALEM | MATUSALEM 2008 - Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins 2011 – Danish: Metusalem, Torgard

During the cleaning of the Tórshavn lake two town employees find a skeleton, which is believed to be a thousand years old. It is immediately dubbed Methuselah by the people which began soon to guess about which ancient Viking king it could be. But not all are certain that the skeleton comes from the Viking Age. Our protagonist, journalist and consultant Hannis Martinsson receives a call from a retired fisherman who claims that it could the skeleton of his brother, who disappeared without a trace in 1961. Hannis Martinsson will be soon involved in a story that is connected to the NATO military structure at the north of Tórshavn and to the operations of a Scottish spy trawler that sailed the Faroese waters in the Fifties.

NORÐLÝSI | NORTHERN LIGHT 2009 - Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins 2013 - Danish: Nordlys, Torgard.

The newly elected prime minister of the Faroe Islands, a woman, is shot while lightning up the Christmas tree in Vaglið. A short time later two people burn alive on a ship in Vestaru Vág. Hannis Martinsson is working again for the magazine Blað and tries to figure out if there’s a connection between the two facts and if homophobia plays a role in the whole story.

NORSKA LØVA | LION OF THE NORTH 2010 - Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins

In 1935, during a school trip to visit the ruins of the eighteenth-century ship Norska Løva, a boy of fourteen disappeared. 75 years after that day the brother of the boy asks Hannis Martinsson to help him to found out the truth. Although Hannis is not convinced that he will succeed in finding something after all these years, he takes on the task. Soon he finds himself in a web of unanswered questions and trails of death.

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

DEYDNINGAR DANSA Á SANDI | DANCE OF DEATH ON THE BEACH 2011 - Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins

A man is found dead during the low tide on Grønulíð Borðoy. He was chained to the rocks on the beach and drowned when the flood came. An unusually grisly murder. Hannis Martinsson has a suspicion that through the years a number of murders have occurred and all of them are related to the town of Klaksvík in the northernmost islands of the Faroe.

PRESS

http://eurolitnetwork.com/rivetingreviews-max-easterman-reviews-walpurgis-tide-by-jogvan-isaksen/ MAX EASTERMAN - RIVETING REVIEWS | EUROPEAN LITERATURE NETWORK - JULY 2015 SHTTP://CULTURA.ELPAIS.COM/CULTURA/2014/10/19/ACTUALIDAD/1413742862_456065.HTML

Jacinto Antón - El país - October 2014

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

Anna Fado La ballata di Ross

Previously Unrelased | 194.395 battute | 51 capitoli. UN EMOZIONANTE ROMANZO A TINTE NOIR SULL’AMICIZIA, LA PERDITA DELL’INNOCENZA E LA SCOPERTA DI SÉ.

Cosa

succede quando scompare una persona? La cronaca offre una spietata panoramica sui

familiari più stretti, considerati non sempre a ragione, i soli e unici interessati dalla colpa e il dolore. Ma quali sono le ripercussioni che eventi di questa portata hanno sulle vite degli amici, dei parenti più o meno lontani, delle conoscenze.

Partendo

da questo spunto la autrice costruisce un intrigante romanzo dalla profonda

sensibilitàlita, ma con un ritmo incalzante.

Due

episodi segnano in maniera indelebile la vita della protagonista, quando è ancora

un’adolescente: la scoperta di non essere amata dalla madre e la dolorosa scomparsa di un’amica durante una vacanza estiva. Per superare questi traumi Francesca dovrà imparare a guardarsi dentro con l’aiuto di una psicoterapeuta che, anni dopo, l’assisterà nel viaggio a ritroso nella vacanza di cui porta le cicatrici e dove, oltre a una amica, ha perso irrimediabilmente l’innocenza.

A fare da contraltare alle vicende della protagonista, la storia di Rossana, Ross, una giovane troppo bella per essere vera e che scompare portando con sé alcuni segreti e la sua aura di fascino. Per ritrovarla Francesca condurrà una ricerca apparentemente impossibile insieme a Giacomo, l’amico e amante e a Letizia, l’avvocato che sa cosa significhi stare dalla parte delle vittime. I tre scopriranno il mistero sulla sorte di Rossana portando avanti i loro personali percorsi di crescita.

Anna Cariani è nata a Bologna nel 1959 e attualmente vive a Pisa. Infermiera psichiatrica prima e giornalista pubblicista poi. Ha collaborato ed è stata direttrice responsabile del periodico d’informazione Il giornale della Casa delle Donne | Casa delle donne news, foglio d’informazione del centro antiviolenza di Bologna. Il primo libro pubblicato nel 1995, Vola colomba (La sfera celeste edizioni) è stato finalista al Premio Riccione di scrittura femminile, ed è liberamente ispirato a una protagonista della Resistenza bolognese. Toscana city, del 1997 (Ibiskos Editrice) è una raccolta di racconti ambientati nella Toscana dei giorni nostri e in quelli dell’ultima guerra, tra le province di Pistoia e Lucca. La poesia Banditi fa parte della raccolta “Voci di poesia: rassegna di poeti contemporanei a Bologna” a.c. di Gilberto Centi, Pendragon, 1997. Nel 2000 Storie-Oppure edizioni pubblica In un attimo solo, un libro di racconti liberamente ispirato al periodo della Resistenza contro il nazi-fascismo nell’Appennino Tosco-Emiliano. Il viaggio di Enea è il racconto finalista ottava edizione Premio Energheia 2002. http:// www.energheia.org/il-viaggio-di-enea_anna-cariani.html Nel 2015, il suo racconto Davvero incinta è stato pubblicato nell’antologia di Carmignani Editrice promotrice del concorso I diritti e le diritte: dalle staffette a noi.

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

Il tema della violenza si insinua sotto traccia, per andare acquistando centralità con il dipanassi della trama.

La storia ambientata in Italia e in Spagna, tra Modena, Ibiza, il Salento e l’Appennino ToscoEmiliano, riprende brani, canzoni e testi poetici della musica spagnola, italiana e cubana profumati con un pizzico di saudade. UN ASSAGGIO DI LA BALLATA DI ROSS MODENA, 12 APRILE 2008 Azzurro cielo, la soffitta che Francesca aveva adibito a palestra, dava ormai segni di cedimento. I lavori per trasformare il locale in una piccola sala attrezzata si erano svolti in fretta e, nonostante fossero passati solo tre anni, il linoleum appiccicato ai mattoni in cotto si stava scollando qua e là, le pareti dipinte con i colori ad acqua erano annerite e gli infissi di alluminio avevano preso una brutta piega. Ce n’era abbastanza per dedicare le vacanze estive, o almeno una parte, a ristrutturare lo spazio in cui Francesca teneva lezioni di yoga e ginnastica a gruppi di adulti e bambini. La laurea all’ISEF, presa a ventiquattro anni, era rimasta abbandonata in un cassetto prima che le venisse in mente di farla fruttare, dopo una parentesi impiegatizia. Così, riappropriandosi di una parte di sé che aveva dimenticato, erano venuti i corsi serali nelle palestre dei circoli, come quello dei dipendenti ferroviari, degli amici del Brasile o dell’Arci. Le sue lezioni erano frequentate da un pubblico eterogeneo: giovani disincantati, adulti e anziani amanti del vino e della buona tavola e signore modello dinasty-barbie-sexandthecity, più preoccupate di mantenere in equilibrio il seno rifatto, che di allungarsi fino a toccare la punta dei loro piedi. Poi aveva iniziato a fare qualche supplenza nelle scuole e, con sua estrema sorpresa, aveva scoperto di trovarsi molto meglio con i bambini e i ragazzi dai 4 ai 18 anni di quanto non le capitasse con gli adulti. Aveva, infatti, abbastanza polso da non lasciarsi sopraffare e riusciva a tenere desta la loro attenzione per l’entusiasmo con cui spiegava gli esercizi. Ne conosceva davvero tanti. Oltre ai giochi da fermi, in movimento e ritmici, introduceva sempre elementi nuovi per incuriosire gli allievi. Francesca non aveva il classico physique du rôle dell’insegnante di ginnastica; di corporatura bassa e tozza, possedeva però una certa armonia e, grazie al continuo allenamento, una grande agilità. Di capelli biondo cenere, penetranti occhi nocciola e una spruzzata di efelidi sul viso, era arrivata se non a piacersi, almeno ad accettarsi. Qualcosa però le aveva impedito di amarsi veramente e non solo sotto il profilo estetico. Due eventi, accaduti in periodi differenti della vita, l’avevano profondamente segnata: il primo durante l’infanzia, quando a soli undici anni ascoltò casualmente una conversazione tra la madre e un’amica. Scoprì che la prima le preferiva la sorella e, papale papale, la udì proferire: "Se non cambia, Francesca, non sa di niente, è proprio insignificante oltre che bruttina". Fu come sentirsi

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

gettare in una tomba e, da quel momento in poi, tombale diventò il rapporto con la madre. La rivelazione la ferì profondamente e rese davvero arduo il suo percorso di crescita. Solo grazie alla tenerezza del padre e al passare del tempo, imparò a guardarsi con occhi meno critici. Ma il danno era sempre lì, pronto a riemergere non appena se ne presentava l’occasione. Per sopperire alla mancanza di amore materno, dimostratole non solo a parole ma anche nei fatti, si era costruita e aggrappata a un’immagine di ragazza temeraria, in grado di competere su molti piani sia coi compagni dell’altro sesso, sia con le persone adulte. Era portata per la ginnastica e per gli sport in generale e, potenziando queste sue caratteristiche, era arrivata a guadagnare sul campo la stima e il rispetto di amici e compagni, sviluppando addirittura un piglio da "capetta". Francesca sorseggiò il caffè e aspirò voluttuosamente il fumo della sigaretta, mentre un sole primaverile e mattutino illuminava la stanza e l’aria fresca entrava dalle finestre spalancate. Quella piccola palestra era davvero il suo regno, il coronamento di tante fatiche, il più bel regalo che avesse mai ricevuto. Un dono del padre per i suoi trent’anni. No, non avrebbe permesso che Azzurro cielo si deteriorasse, nemmeno un po’. L’avrebbe ristrutturato anche a costo di tirare la cinghia per parecchio tempo, rinunciando alle spese superflue, ai cicli di massaggi e ai trattamenti estetici. - Buongiorno! - Francesca non l’aveva sentita arrivare e se l’era trovata davanti all’improvviso, in pigiama, infradito, chioma scompigliata e tutto il resto. - Di te non ci si può proprio liberare - le disse ridendo, mentre con una mano le arruffava i bei capelli scuri e ondulati. Sua sorella era un segugio e, nonostante lei non fosse nemmeno passata da casa prima di salire in palestra, eccola irrompere nella sua tana con la vivacità che le era propria. - Avevi promesso di svegliarmi con caffè e brioche, cara sorellina...- Maurizia aveva alzato il dito per dare enfasi alla sua replica. - Ragazza di poca fede, sarei scesa tra un attimo per portarti al bar. - Hmm, non lo so, sai - Maurizia corrugò il bel visino in una smorfia di dubbio. - Cos’è che non sai? - Non so se posso fidarmi. Francesca simulò l’atto di appiopparle un ceffone mentre le intimava di andare a vestirsi e prepararsi, perché entro una decina di minuti al massimo, sarebbe passata a prenderla. - Ma tu guarda che faccia tosta! - le urlò dietro mentre Maurizia si precipitava giù per le scale. In realtà scherzava, era sempre contenta di passare del tempo con lei, perché la sorella più giovane era tra le persone che più amava e a cui si sentiva maggiormente legata. Arrivata quando la madre era vicina alla menopausa, era stata una sorpresa per tutti e, per Francesca, un toccasana. Le aveva dato la forza di andare avanti . Di fatto, l’aveva cresciuta lei. Con Irene, la sorella maggiore, la distanza invece era abissale. Un vuoto che solo ora, da adulte, piano piano stavano cercando di colmare. Francesca si era chiesta tante volte se e quanto il disamore materno avesse influito sul loro rapporto, per concludere a trent’otto anni compiuti che magari non c’entrava nulla, che forse era solo una questione di pure e semplici affinità elettive.

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

Vent’anni prima, il 12 di luglio per la precisione, era accaduto l’altro grave episodio destinato a segnare irrimediabilmente la sua vita e, mentre scendeva le scale insieme alla sorella, aveva l’intima consapevolezza di avere esorcizzato se non l’intero dramma almeno il buio fitto che per anni le aveva impedito di vedere. Un buio che le partiva da dentro e l’avvolgeva quasi completamente, lasciandola come un paesaggio dopo l’alluvione. Era stato il padre, anche in quell’occasione, a offrirle un appiglio con i suoi consigli affettuosi durante le loro passeggiate pomeridiane. - Non so davvero come farei senza la mia sorellina…- argomentò Maurizia addentando voracemente il croissant tiepido e profumato. - Non credo che moriresti di fame. - Ecco, forse per fare una colazione decente, come quella che mi offri tu, dovrei vivere al bar, o sposare un barista. Anzi no: dovrei io stessa fare la barista! - Cosa ne dici Maya? La vuoi assumere? - domandò Francesca alla ragazza dietro al banco. Ma non so se sia proprio un affare… Maya sorrise e, mentre Maurizia addentava il secondo croissant, rispose: - Potrei esporla in vetrina come ragazza mangia-panini, mangia-brioches e mangia-pasticcini. - Non si può fare. Tra poco sarò maggiorenne e, vi avviso, diventerò la donna più richiesta e impegnata del pianeta! - Accipicchia, è proprio tua sorella. France è meglio che ti prepari. Caffè? Molto forte, grazie.

7 LUGLIO 1988 - Ma quante cose metti in valigia? - domandò Irene solitamente poco attenta ai fatti altrui. Era un soleggiato pomeriggio di luglio e, alle cinque e mezzo in punto, Francesca doveva prendere un treno per Milano, da dove avrebbe poi raggiunto l’aeroporto di Malpensa per imbarcarsi su un volo diretto a Ibiza. In precedenza aveva già fatto qualche viaggetto, per esempio in Inghilterra, dove aveva alloggiato presso una famiglia e frequentato una scuola in lingua per migliorare l’inglese. Ma la partenza per Ibiza aveva un sapore diverso, era una vera e propria vacanza con gli amici all'insegna del divertimento assoluto. Fulminò sua sorella con lo sguardo e continuò a infilare in valigia ogni genere di indumenti ma, al momento di chiuderla, dovette arrendersi ed eliminare quell’ in più che impediva ai due lati della cerniera di combaciare. In stazione c’erano già tutti. Quante volte sarebbe ritornata col pensiero a quei momenti e quanta nostalgia e impotenza avrebbe provato nel tentativo impossibile di fermarli, ripercorrendo le emozioni e le facce dei compagni fino allo sfinimento.

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

- Ehi, guardate chi arriva. Ciao France - la salutarono tre ragazze intente a svaligiare una macchinetta di snack e merendine. Ma fu Giacomo, il suo amico del cuore, a scoccarle per primo un bacio sulla guancia e a condurla sotto la pensilina dove un’altra decina di componenti del gruppo era accampata, chi sulle panchine e chi accovacciato a terra, con l’aria libera e strafottente di chi pensa di avere il mondo in tasca. Francesca, che godeva di un’ottima reputazione ed era amata e temuta da tutta la combriccola, si fermò a chiacchierare qua e là con più o meno convinzione per poi tornare dalle tre amiche che avevano terminato le monetine e stavano iniziando a fare una colletta. - France hai qualche moneta? - le chiese con un sorriso irresistibile Letizia, una delle ragazze più carine e scaltre della compagnia. - Solo perché sei tu - le rispose con aria da dura ma, mentre infilava una mano nelle aderentissime tasche dei jeans, l’altra l’aveva già abbracciata. Neanche a dirlo, in treno sedevano assieme nello stesso scompartimento di Sandra, Rossana e Giacomo. Il tempo scivolava via leggero e carico di aspettative. All’epoca, Sandra e Giacomo facevano coppia fissa, mentre Letizia aveva un fidanzato “ufficiale” che però non faceva parte della spedizione. In passato Francesca aveva avuto qualche flirt con due ragazzi della compagnia, ma ora era single e, nonostante lo nascondesse molto bene, la cosa iniziava a pesarle. I ragazzi più che corteggiarla la trattavano come una di loro e, spesso, finivano col diventare suoi amici. Aveva sì avuto diverse esperienze amorose e in particolare una, quando aveva quindici anni, con un ragazzo di trenta. Con lui aveva imparato ad amare e a sentirsi veramente desiderata. Era stato un maestro da molti punti di vista e, oltre alla sua iniziazione sessuale, aveva provveduto anche a introdurla a un uso disinvolto di alcune droghe, erba e cocaina. Con Kostas si era sentita veramente donna. Per tutta la durata della loro relazione, un anno circa, aveva vissuto un’esistenza più matura di quella che i suoi quindici anni le avrebbero potuto offrire se non l’avesse conosciuto. Anche per questo lo rimpianse dopo la sua partenza per la Grecia al termine degli studi all’università di Bologna. Alle soglie della maggiore età Francesca aveva molta più esperienza di tante sue coetanee ma, allo stesso tempo, le invidiava proprio per quel loro essere ancora alla scoperta del mondo e del sesso; cosa che ai suoi occhi le rendeva a volte un po’ noiose ma anche tanto femminili, almeno più di quanto lei non sentisse di essere. Sua madre non avrebbe esitato a definire tale contraddizione una conseguenza di quel suo periodo “da puttana”. Infine, Rossana. Con lei tutte le categorie risultavano riduttive e parole come bellezza o simpatia non bastavano a descrivere la sua persona. Mora e con grandi occhi scuri, aveva uno sguardo cristallino e penetrante, una carnagione olivastra e vellutata su un corpo superbo e, come se tutto questo non bastasse, un sorriso smagliante che colpiva dritto al cuore. Di carattere riservato, dietro un’apparente socievolezza celava dei segreti: con lei si poteva facilmente entrare in confidenza e, all’improvviso, trovarsi di fronte una porta blindata. E, cazzo, non c’era verso di scucirti una parola di più. Non è vero Rossà?

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

Frequentavano lo stesso liceo scientifico e, nonostante Rossana avesse un anno in meno rispetto a Francesca, era stata ben accolta dal gruppo. In quel fatidico mese di luglio, appena tornati da Ibiza, tutti tranne lei avrebbero dovuto sostenere gli esami di maturità. Questo viaggio, a ridosso degli esami, era stato un ulteriore motivo di scontro tra Francesca e la madre. - Si è mai vista una che va in vacanza prima degli esami? Devi essere pazza! - le aveva strillato in faccia solo due sere prima, quando aveva ormai capito che la partenza era cosa fatta. Come al solito Guido, suo padre, era intervenuto a calmare le agitate acque di casa: - Francesca è sempre andata bene a scuola e non ha quasi mai avuto problemi. Se vuole andare in vacanza, perché no? L’affermazione, però, non era veritiera e sua madre e lei lo sapevano bene, ma Francesca non avrebbe rinunciato a quella vacanza nemmeno a costo di essere bocciata, anche solo per non dare soddisfazione a lei, Giulia Tofanelli in Menichini, in arte “la strega”, sua madre.

15 FEBBRAIO 1997 Erano passati nove anni ormai e Ibiza era poco più che un’isola nella corrente dei ricordi. Dopo aver attraversato tutti i livelli dell’umano soffrire: rimozione, lutto, impotenza e depressione, avendone fatto parola solo con quei pochi di cui si fidava e che le erano stati di conforto, Francesca valutò, per la prima volta, l’idea di iniziare una psicoterapia. Glielo aveva suggerito Guido, che della figlia conosceva debolezze e presunzioni, perché nonostante la maturità raggiunta a ogni caduta Francesca si rialzava con estrema fatica, sopraffatta da un peso che sembrava schiacciarla. Quel corpo fatto per correre e volare aveva superato molti ostacoli da quando, a tredici anni, aveva avuto la prima mestruazione. Divenuta donna si era sentita libera di reinventarsi prendendo a modello un ideale di bellezza che includeva vitalità e forza. Ora era uno spirito pieno di grazia e vigore ma con una ferita ancora aperta, la sola che la sua volontà non fosse stata in grado di rimarginare e che, dopo quel viaggio, aveva ricominciato sanguinare. Francesca prese in considerazione il consiglio solo perché veniva dal padre, ma in seguito intuì che un punto di vista più distaccato, come quello di una professionista, avrebbe potuto aiutarla ad ampliare il proprio orizzonte, ogni giorno più angusto a causa del malessere. “Vorrei che qualcuno mi aiuti a guardare le cose da un'altra prospettiva e così mi aiuti”, pensò e, avuto il nominativo di una buona psicologa da una persona di fiducia, la contattò. Ora che se la trovava di fronte, era troppo tardi per scappare. - C'è qualcosa che la preoccupa? - le chiese la dottoressa con fare cordiale ma fermo. - Si, - ammise con un sospiro di sollievo - ho fatto degli errori… Imperdonabili. Parecchio tempo fa’ e... Mi sento in colpa.

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

Anziché affrontare il nocciolo della questione chiedendole a quali errori si riferisse, la dottoressa la spiazzò domandandole perché riteneva che fossero “imperdonabili”. - E poi, chi è che dovrebbe perdonarla? Qualcun altro o lei stessa? Secondo la religione cristiana il perdono è importante come un sacramento: non lo si nega a nessuno. - Nessuno me lo nega perché nessuno lo sa - aggiunse Francesca con un filo di voce. - Nessuno sa che cosa? - Da anni ho un peso... Mi sento come fossi una specie di assassina… Materialmente non ho ucciso nessuno ma, a volte, dentro di me, sento… Che è come se lo avessi fatto. Quando la dottoressa l’ebbe aiutata a districarsi nel ginepraio della memoria, tra sensi di colpa e mancanza d’amore, Francesca fu in grado di raccontarle per filo e per segno tutte le luci e ombre della sua “storia”. Ma questo avvenne solo dopo varie sedute e, soprattutto, dopo aver deciso che di lei si poteva fidare.

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it

GASTÓN PÉREZ IZQUIERDO MAN AND A HALF THE STORY OF BLAS DE LEZO AND THE DEFENSE OF CARTAGENA DE INDIAS “Attack!” shouted the sailors, brandishing their sabers and pistols, ready for hand-to-hand combat against the enemy on narrow wooden gangplanks stained red with blood. These were times when there was no place for fear and courage tasted of adrenaline and smoke, gunpowder and sweat. These were the times of the pirates of the Caribbean, greedy Englishmen who would later write the annals of history from their skewed perspective, painting their own larceny in glorious epic brush strokes. Spain was trying to defend itself from this British pillaging, asking its soldiers and sailors to prove themselves as men. Among them was an admiral who history has unjustly forgotten: Blas de Lezo, known as Halfman, because he had lost a leg, an arm, and an eye while faithfully serving the Spanish Crown in Malaga, Toulon, and Barcelona. The brave survived combat, their bodies marked by Details:  scars that were a testament to their courage. Author: Gastón Pérez A Basque through and through, Blas de Lezo served Spain Izquierdo  with devotion and bravery. Outraged by the affronts of the British, the Pages: 256   admiral advised all those who considered themselves true Spaniards to urinate in the direction of Albion. After a long career, it fell on Blas de Lezo to defend Cartagena de Indias from the avarice of the English, who were eager to seize this jewel of the Caribbean. Commanding 186 ships that contained 2,000 cannons and 23,600 fighters, including Spanish sailors, American recruits led by Lawrence Washington (brother of the famous George), and black Jamaican cane cutters, Admiral Edward Vernon attempted to take the Colombian port that Blas de Lezo defended with only six vessels and 3,000 soldiers, 600 of whom were unruly indigenous archers. This is the story of the exploits of an indomitable Basque who some disparagingly called Halfman, although he was worth as much as an entire navy. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Gastón Pérez Izquierdo is a lawyer and notary public. He graduated from the University of Buenos Aires in 1961 and earned his masters degree in Diplomacy from El Salvador University, Buenos Aires, in 1964. He won a scholarship to undertake postgraduate studies in Rome in 1964, where he completed his doctorate in Law and International Politics at the Catholic University in 1965. Professor of Public International Law and Economic Policy at the School of Law, University of La Plata (1969–1973). Professor of Public International Law, School of Law, Catholic University of La Plata (1970–1977). Dean of the School of Law, Catholic University of La Plata (1974–1977). Doctorate in Law and Social Sciences, University of La Plata, 1973. Mayor of Lanús Municipality (1979–1982). Government minister, Buenos Aires province (1982–1983). President of the Dr. Emilio J. Hardoy Foundation. Contributor to La Nación and La Nueva Provincia newspapers; regular columnist for La Prensa newspaper. He is the author of several books: La última Carta de Pellegrini [Pellegrini's Last Letter], La Mirada Global [The Global Gaze], Adolfo Alsina, Caudillo y Estadista [Adolfo Alsina, Caudillo y Estadista], Los Marqueses de Buenos Aires [The Marquesses of Buenos Aires], Borges y Hardoy. Un diálogo en el Cielo [Borges and Hardoy. A dialog in heaven], La Invasión de Inglaterra 200 años después [The English Invasion 200 Years Later], and La Campaña del Desierto [The Desert Campaign]. He is a member of the Argentine Academy of History and is currently writing about the Spanish admiral Blas de Lezo. He is married to Elsa Raquel Rodríguez; has four children and eight grandchildren.

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it www.olmoediciones.com | (54 11) 4829-7094 | olmoediciones@gmail.com

DIEGO HUBERMAN The prosecutor of the taste The history of Grimod de La Reynière, the first gastronomic critic

Alexandre Balthazar Grimod de La Reynière lived in France at the time of the Revolution. He was the only son of a wealthy marriage that sidelined him because of his deformed hands. However, transformed personality.

it was those hands that his character and

started as theater critic, However, his rebelliousness, his nonconformity and his contempt on the customs of his time, took him into exile, from where he would one day return immersed into gastronomy.

He watched, criticized and educated the society of his time on the subject of meals. His meals became famous, but it was his writings that preserved his name to this day. Unlike Savarin or Carême (or even Dumas), Grimod converted culinary critic into a genre and also, he made it a way of thinking about the relationship of peoples of his time.

Grimod was the first food critic. THIS IS HIS STORY. ABOUT THE AUTHOR DIEGO HUBERMAN WAS BORN IN BUENOS AIRES IN 1968. HE IS A JOURNALISTIC PRODUCER, A TRADE/PROFESSION THAT MAKES HIM LOOK FOR REALITY IN THE SEARCH OF STORIES TO TELL, WHICH IS IN A WAY, A LITERARY GENRE. HE IS NOT AN ACADEMIC, AND PERHAPS IT WOULD BE EASIER TO STATE THAT HE IS SOMEONE WHO IS PASSIONATE ABOUT THE LITTLE KNOWN AND SAID THE UNSAID. HE IS THE AUTHOR OF TWO THEATER PLAYS, AND A BOOK ABOUT THE INVENTOR OF THE RAINMAKING MACHINE. HE IS NOT INTERESTED IN SOCCER. HE WOULD RATHER PREFER RED WINE.

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, libia rd. | 40138 | bologna | italy | {+39} 329 22 67 452 info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it www.olmoediciones.com | (54 11) 4829-7094 | olmoediciones@gmail.com

i f h

it.linkedin.com/in/mariancalifano/ facebook.com/studiogrimorio marianacalifano

STUDIO GRIMORIO | 64, LIBIA RD. | 40138 | BOLOGNA | ITALY | P. {+39} 051 716 20 20 | M. {+39} 329 22 67 452 |

De te fabula narratur

VAT NUMBER 03198321204 | info@grimorio.it | www.grimorio.it