Best of
Spanish-Literature

2017

El ciclo del amor marica


Gabriel J. Martín - 2017
    Advice on conflict resolution and genuine intimacy. The author doesnt forget to include treatments on couple crises, ruptures, and the mourning of heartbreak as a previous step to be prepared to fall in love again.

An Ideal Presence


Eduardo Berti - 2017
    From that experience he created this series of lightly fictionalized testimonials from nurses, nursing aides, doctors, administrators, porters, volunteer musicians, and the other people who make the unit tick. The result is a distinctly intimate and often poignant portrait of sickness and care, and unflinching look at death through the eyes of the people who work with it every day — but also a profound reflection on what it means to be alive.

Last Words on Earth


Javier Serena - 2017
    Fired from almost every job he's held―usually for paying more attention to literature than work―he sets himself up in a rundown shack where he works on writing stories to enter in regional contests across Spain, and foisting his judgements about literature on anyone who will listen as one of the last remaining members of the "negacionismo" poetry movement. Completely dedicated to an unwavering belief in his own art, Funes struggles in anonymity until he achieves unbridled success with The Aztec and becomes a legend... at least for a moment. Diagnosed with lung cancer a few years later, Funes will only be able to enjoy his newfound attention for a short time.Told through the voices of Funes's best friend, his wife, and himself, Last Words on Earth looks at the price―and haphazard nature―of fame through the lens of a Bolaño-esque writer who persevered just long enough to be transformed out of obscurity into being a literary legend right at the end of his life.

Paraguayan Sea


Wilson Bueno - 2017
    Who is its Paraguayan narrator who has loved two men, old and young, in a hot/cold beach town in Brazil? A woman, as she says? A gay man switching pronouns? Paraguayan Sea is a river-to-the-sea of identities and migrations, its Portunhol translated into Frenglish by the polylingual poet Erín Moure.