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Book synopsis

"Truly merciless fiction...The 'Northwest' of the title is not a geographical region but the name of a cemetery, and the celebration is of death - most notably the death that results when a circus wagon runs over a small boy. The protagonist, Juan Medinao, is a sad provincial landowner...Juan's half brother Pablo ...acts as Abel to Juan's Cain, though fratricide does not quite come to pass...The portrait of the tortured Juan is utterly convincing in Phoebe Ann Porter's fine translation, which somehow manages to preserve the shattering darkness of the original." (New York Times Book Review). A tragic tale of hatred between two half-brothers, Celebration in the Northwest (Fiesta al Noroeste) is a gripping novel by Ana Maria Matute, one of twentieth-century Spain's most important writers. At the center of the novel are confessions that the protagonist, Juan Medinao, makes to a local priest in the fictional Castilian town of Artamila. Those confessions reveal the volatile mixture of attraction and repulsion between Juan and his half-brother, Pablo. In describing the troubled bond between these characters, Matute creates a harrowing, modern enactment of the Biblical tale of Cain and Abel. Celebration in the Northwest is remarkable for its evocative prose, its riveting plot, and its portrayal of a character overcome by bitterness, envy, rage, and alienation. Ana Maria Matute was born in Barcelona in 1926 and has published ten novels, ten collections of short stories and essays, and eight children's books. She has won nearly all of Spain's major literary prizes - among them, the prestigious Cafe Gijon award for Celebration - and her works have been translated into twenty-three different languages. Phoebe Ann Porter is coeditor, with Hector Medina, of Exploraciones imaginativas: Quince cuentos hispano-americanos.

Book details

Book category Books in English Fiction & related items Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

• Full title: Celebration in the Northwest
• Author: Ana Maria Matute
• Language: English
• Binding: Hardback
• Number of pages: 86
• EAN: 9780803231801
• ID: 04922978
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Weight: 345 g
• Dimensions: 155 × 204 × 15 mm
• Date of publishing: 25. March 1997

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