The work in Sur de Babel: “El Síndrome de Rasputín”

Sur de Babel defines “El Síndrome de Rasputín” as “the fog that covers everything in a Buenos Aires full of Bicentennial bombs with two obelisks, buildings destroyed, with a constant set garua makes the cold even in deepest bones, three characters as strange as the context, are moving from La Boca to Once in attempts to solve a bizarre murder which has as the main accused party one of the three friends. The three are victims of Tourette’s syndrome, and this surviving of the devastated city in the middle of nervous tics creates a sort of friendship between them, or just maybe a mutual understanding of the discrimination they all feel.

“Sometimes a good novel is its history, other times its characters, or how well it is written. When the same work is in these three categories together, it is cause for celebration. Our greatest tribute, then, is that all partners in Sur de Babel can enjoy these lines that catch the reader knows from the beginning until the end”. This are the words that Sur de Babel cose to define the novel.

In this wonderful novel by Romero, those three types are rare, three friends, socially and affectionately marginalized by the disease, the compulsive repetition of gestures, exclamations or movements that identify Tourette syndrome, are vulnerable prisoners of tics . Clinical cases lost, the lovable Abelev, Maglie and Muishkin will be involved, for the sake of solidarity, in a removed adventure.

The author

Ricardo Romero was born in Paraná, Entre Ríos, in 1976. He graduated in Modern Letters from the National University of Cordoba in 2002 and lives in Buenos Aires. In 2003 published his first novel, “Ninguna parte”, and from that year directed the literary magazine Oliverio. In 2006 published his first book of stories, “Tantas noches como sean necesarias”. In 2007 his story “Visigodos” and “Habitación 22” was published in several anthologies dedicated to the new Argentine narrators. It has at present an unpublished novel, “Perros de la lluvia”. Is a member of the “Quinteto de la muerte” and editor of Gargola Publishing, where he directs the “Laura Palmer no ha muerto.”

Aquilina Editions

In 2008, Ediciones Aquilina opened its doors with a collection focused on four modern polices of Buenos Aires, our: Absolute Black collection, directed by Juan Sasturain and Ricardo Romero. The editorial also publish and make known the works of authors, is aimed at the development and the search for new writers, emerging, novel, to show the reality of living and a national literature itself.

Reservations: info@proa.org
Admission free.

Sur de Babel says about Moira Irigoyen´s writing style: “It is characterized by a warm narrative that gives special attention to detail through the use of fine language charged with energetic stories, strength and identity”.

The author describes “That summer” as a short novel narrated in first person. Julia is character presented from two perspective simultaneously, that of a teenage girls and of an adult woman. She is hunted by her years and her memories. She is a foreigner that keeps remembering from her window in Canada, her childhood, her space, her summer, that summer. The narrative brings together these two women: the girl that feels and plays from the sunny days, the sand, the warm winds, and on the other hand the woman that survives inside her room, through the cold winter and the piles of snow accumulated in the canadian landscape.

The structure of the story is based through the reconstruction of her memories. Memories that move away from the sad and melancholic thoughts in order to present the reality of a foreigner, that sees her self expropriated from her space and observes the limits of her own identity through her window. Memory becomes the bond of the two tales and towards the end of the novel, the grown up version of Julia gains importance in order to overcome through her writing, the burdens of her memories from a foreign country. Language takes form, and in the final pages the hidden photographs and the new buds begin to re-appear from the cold.

The author was born in Buenos Aires in 1965. She graduated with a BA in Literature from the University of Buenos Aires. Her published work includes “En el fondo de la materia crece una vegetación oscura”, by Paradiso editorial, the storybook “Combustible” (Longseller) and other children tales. In 2006 she participated on the compilation “Una terraza propia” a selection of new argentinean female authors by Florencia Abatte (Norma Editorial) . The work “That summer” took her to the finals in the Concurso Novela Página/12 2007, and in that same year the novel was recognized  by the Fondo Nacional de las Artes.

For more information about the book and the author, click here.