A taut, spare sociological novel about the emptiness of contemporary existence – scathing and affecting in equal measure
- Shortlisted
- The Man Booker International Prize 2019
- Published by And Other Stories
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Intense, intelligent and extraordinarily sensitive, Alia Trabucco Zerán’s remarkable debut presents a new way to count the cost of generational trauma
Santiago, Chile. The city is covered in ash. Felipe, Iquela and Paloma, three children of ex-militants, are facing a past they can neither remember nor forget. Felipe sees dead bodies on park benches, counting them up in an obsessive quest to square the figures with the official death toll. He is searching for the perfect zero, a life with no remainder. When the body of Paloma’s mother gets lost in transit, the three take a hearse and a handful of pills on a road trip with a difference.
Alia Trabucco Zeran
Alia Trabucco Zerán was born in Santiago, Chile, in August 1983
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Sophie Hughes
Sophie Hughes is a literary translator from Spanish and Italian, and is the most nominated translator in the International Booker Prize’s 10-year history
More about Sophie Hughes Other nominated books by Sophie Hughes
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