The Santa Cruz Book Fair is drawing near and Bolivian publishers are revealing the titles that they will present starting this Wednesday, June 1. One of them is the La Paz publishing house El Cuervo, which will have as a novelty the science fiction novel Wells Wells, by the Ecuadorian writer Gabriela Alemán, which was published in several Latin American countries and translated into English, Portuguese and German.
The Argentine author Samanta Schweblin refers to Wells Wells as an “ironic, bold and fierce” book. “But what exactly is it? A satire? A science fiction novel? A political detective story? Or the purest reality of contemporary Latin America. It is unclassifiable, as are all great books,” says Schweblin .
The plot of this novel takes place in a place called Poso Wells –a violent and abandoned suburb–, where reality has become monstrous: dozens of women have disappeared in the face of public indifference, streets that are sinking revealing the conspiracy of a group of blind men. who inhabit the catacombs and who have kidnapped the alternate presidential candidate, who in turn is practically an employee of a polluting company. Varas, a reporter sent to the area by his newspaper, will try to unmask the latest events and will go through a labyrinth of corruption and horror.
“I intended to write a novel in installments –says Gabriela in an interview–. I did it thinking about those beginnings of cinema and the idea of creating these suspenseful chapters; so there are parallel stories and the idea that each chapter ends with a hook and then picks up the story later.”
In addition, Alemán added that the central idea was born after the author read the country of the blindby HG Wells, causing the author to decide to use those blind beings to recreate political criticism using a parodic narrative.
Gabriela Alemán (Rio de Janeiro, 1968), is one of the most important writers of the Spanish language. She was awarded the New Cinema Foundation Essay Prize (2004), she won the CIESPAL Chronicle Prize (2014), she was finalist of the Gabriel García Márquez Hispano-American Short Story Prize (2014), twice won the Joaquín Gallegos Lara Prize (2014 and 2017) and the Verlagsprämie prize (2021).
This feminist thriller novel, with elements of black and fantastic humor that won the Verlagspremier award in 2021 (Germany), can be found at the Santa Cruz International Book Fair, it will be presented there in the last days of the event, and from June in bookstores across the country.
Gabrielle German