Shantytown: by César Aira (Author), Chris Andrews (Translator)

[Funmi Tofowomo Okelola]

http://www.amazon.com/Shantytown-C%C3%A9sar-Aira/dp/0811219119/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_7

Shantytown 

by César Aira (Author) , Chris Andrews (Translator)

At last, a noir novel from the Argentine master of suspense and surprises

Maxi, a middle-class, directionless ox of a young man who helps the trash pickers of Buenos Aires’s shantytown, attracts the attention of a corrupt, trigger-happy policeman who will use anyone — including two innocent teenage girls — to break a drug ring that he believes is operating within the slum. A strange new drug, a brightly lit carousel of a slum, the kindness of strangers, gunplay... no matter how serious the subject matter, and despite Aira’s “fascination with urban violence and the sinister underside of Latin American politics” (The Millions), Shantytown, like all of Aira’s mesmerizing work, is filled with wonder and mad invention.

Publisher: New Directions (November 20, 2013)

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Dense, unpredictable confections delivered in a plain, stealthily lyrical style capable of accommodating his fondness for mixing metaphysics, realism, pulp fiction, and Dadaist incongruities.” (Michael Greenberg - The New York Review of Books)

“Aira is one of the most provocative and idiosyncratic novelists working in Spanish today, and should not be missed.” (Natasha Wimmer - The New York Times)

About the Author

César Aira was born in Coronel Pringles, Argentina, in 1949. Wildly popular in Latin America, he has published more than seventy books of short fictions and essays.

The poet Chris Andrews has translated many books by Roberto Bolaño and César Aira for New Directions.              

Funmi Tofowomo Okelola

-The Art of Living and Impermanence

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