Scan barcode
katya's review
challenging
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship and Child abuse
Moderate: Rape
thejenna's review
challenging
dark
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
yasmin69801's review
5.0
What a book!! Amazingly written, beautifully translated. One of my best reads this year.
hannahmarierobbins's review
2.0
CN: fatphobia, abuse, sexual assault, racism
Looking at other reviews I’m wondering if I just don’t get this book. I like the prose style and there are some darkly funny bits. She writes desire and apathy very well but...
1) there’s some striking fatphobia. The characters who are fat are all bad, distasteful, and disliked. In one story about an overweight child, the character is presented without compassion and there’s a horrible anecdote about children stabbing him with pencils to see if he will deflate.
2) there’s a lot of sexual violence against women and some of it appears to be gratuitous - includes disposable characters who are assaulted and then thrown away. In the first novella, a child is assaulted by an old man and it’s never really explored beyond saying she craves it again, which feels off.
3) it read (perhaps a translation issue) as anti-Black to me with examples like “foreigners like black women, my mother used to say” and then an aggressive hyper sexual story. Or later “he heard mixed race women smelled more than white women” and then how a white woman had been scentless but the black women smelt of sweat. It struck me more than once and is worth being aware of.
Looking at other reviews I’m wondering if I just don’t get this book. I like the prose style and there are some darkly funny bits. She writes desire and apathy very well but...
1) there’s some striking fatphobia. The characters who are fat are all bad, distasteful, and disliked. In one story about an overweight child, the character is presented without compassion and there’s a horrible anecdote about children stabbing him with pencils to see if he will deflate.
2) there’s a lot of sexual violence against women and some of it appears to be gratuitous - includes disposable characters who are assaulted and then thrown away. In the first novella, a child is assaulted by an old man and it’s never really explored beyond saying she craves it again, which feels off.
3) it read (perhaps a translation issue) as anti-Black to me with examples like “foreigners like black women, my mother used to say” and then an aggressive hyper sexual story. Or later “he heard mixed race women smelled more than white women” and then how a white woman had been scentless but the black women smelt of sweat. It struck me more than once and is worth being aware of.
jesskb's review
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Beautifully written and carefully observed, but I found every story quite depressing and hopeless, and the main character of each story always seems deeply nihilistic or fatalistic. This reflects their living situations quite beautifully, but it's not an uplifting read and the characters seem to go through little development.
zoeelizaking's review
challenging
dark
funny
reflective
fast-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Dark, graphic stories that show the ugliness of our humanity — our selfishness, fickleness, laziness, constant desire for change, the complexity of the human condition — all rooted within the body. I love that it offers an alternative view to Columbia, devoid of the violence, drugs and gangs which seem to be culturally ubiquitous.
elhugh's review
4.0
This collection of various pieces of short fiction brought together for García Robayo's English language debut give a variety of different explorations of the limbo of desiring change but being unable to enact it and the friction between those two states of being. It is not always comfortable reading but it is immersive and thought provoking As exemplary as we've become accustomed to expect from Charco Press.
arirang's review
4.0
Charco Press were the most exciting new publisher in the UK last year. They became best known for the excellent [b:Die, My Love|36098957|Die, My Love|Ariana Harwicz|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1507922567s/36098957.jpg|23858652] which was longlisted for the Man Booker International and shortlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize, but all 4 of their 2017 books I read were excellent, my favourite being [b:Fireflies|38731803|Fireflies|Luis Sagasti|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1519429711s/38731803.jpg|16931188]. Their mission statement:
Fish Soup consists of three separate original books.
- the novella [b:Hasta que pase un huracán|18040376|Hasta que pase un huracán|Margarita García Robayo|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1378684633s/18040376.jpg|25314388] (2012), translated as Waiting for a Hurricane
- the award-winning short-story collection [b:Cosas peores|27222676|Cosas peores|Margarita García Robayo|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1445060755s/27222676.jpg|47265556] (2014), translated as Worse Things
- and the, I believe unpublished in the original, novella Educación sexual, translated as Sexual Education.
The narrator of Waiting for a Hurricane lives on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, where you turn left to continue North, but is desperate to escape. Even as a young child: When people asked me, what do you want to be when you grow up? I’d reply: a foreigner.
The story follows her attempts to make a new life for herself, for example becoming an air hostess, while ultimately struggling to escape. Her ultimate desire is more important than her relationships, which are mainly a means to an end, and when she imagines her life is she stayed and settled with one local boyfriend, she thinks: I’ll always be here, waiting for a hurricane to come.
The seven short stories that comprise Worse Things are all 10-15 pages and deftly sketched portraits of broken lives, with a strong emphasis on bodies that are decaying and places too. In the story from which the title of the English collection is taken, the main character is woken by the pungent smell of boiled fish, one he associates with his wife who used to make fish soup for the patrons of their bar. As he looks at his reflection:
The mirror on the wall reflected the image of a man worn out by working late nights: thin and saggy, his skin transparent like tracing paper, with blue veins snaking all over his body like a hydrographic map of a country with an abundance of rivers. Villafora was the owner of an old bar, which was also his home. The bar was named “Helena” after his wife, who had died from a long and painful disease that took hold of every bone on her body and left her prostrate in bed, delirious. The bar was on the ground floor, it was a spartan place, an industrial drinking hole with wooden tables and chairs, and a large bar with high stools. It had floor-to-ceiling windows looking onto a side-street - in the morning this alleyway was filled with grocery stalls and at night, with prostitutes who, for lack of clients, often came to hang out in a bar. The house was on the upper floor. It consisted of a small living room with a window, and an adjoining bedroom and bathroom. Through the living room window, there was a view of a harbour. It was more of a dumping ground for clapped-out old fishing boats. The city was a tourist resort, the kind of place backpackers and young runaway couples passed through.
In the final story, Sky and Poplars, Ema, although this is never stated explicitly, seems to have had a late miscarriage: a tragedy but her seeminly unemotional reaction has led her husband to leave her and, when she leaves the country to visit her parents, they also struggle to relate to her. A memorable passage 'contrasts' her mother and her sister, Ema's aunt who was neither ugly nor pretty. And as far as Ema could recall, neither was she good at anything in particular. She was utterly unremarkable, Her mother on the other hand was very good at being mediocre at everything she did. She excelled at that: she put a lot of effort into being mediocre.
For a celebrated author, the decision to translate an unpublished story for her English debut might seem odd, but is justified as Sexual Education is perhaps the strongest of the collection, with García Robayo's dark humour, that underlies the other stories, more to the fore.
The first-person narrator attends a strict Catholic girl school, where the girls are given lessons in abstinence, yet in practice the behaviour of even the seemingly pious girls is rather in contrast to what they are taught, with Bill-Clintonesque justifications of what exactly is or is not acceptable. Our narrator is a detached and rather sarcastic observer of both the excessively strict teaching and the contrasting excessively wild behaviour of her classmates.
In one pivotal scene, complete with a Nirvana reference, an older girl has her drink spiked and is then gang raped by 7 boys from the neighbouring religious boys' school. While the boys crime is rather hushed up, the school seems to reserve its greatest condemnation for her parents, for their crime of having a doctor prescribe her the morning after pill. As the headmistress announces the expulsion of the girl:
I was sitting at the back of the classroom, with my headphones hidden under a blanket. Oh no, I know a dirty word, Kurt was whispering in my right ear. The left air was listening attentively to the headmistress, who was announcing the apocalypse, because the unknown potential of a creature with seven fathers had been snubbed out.
Overall, a slightly uneven collection but an interesting and fresh new voice in English, very much fulfilling Charco Press's mission statement, and with another excellent translation from Charlotte Coombe.
3.5 stars rounded up to 4 because of the distinctiveness of Charco Press's output.
Charco Press focuses on finding outstanding contemporary Latin American literature and bringing it to new readers in the English-speaking world. We aim to act as a cultural and linguistic bridge for you to be able to access a brand new world of fiction that has, until now, been missing from your reading list.The first of their 2018 offerings is Fish Soup by Margarita García Robayo and translated by [a:Charlotte Coombe|4049049|Charlotte Coombe|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]. who also translated the enjoyable [b:The President's Room|35671963|The President's Room|Ricardo Romero|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1500012982s/35671963.jpg|45969478] for Charco Press last year.
Fish Soup consists of three separate original books.
- the novella [b:Hasta que pase un huracán|18040376|Hasta que pase un huracán|Margarita García Robayo|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1378684633s/18040376.jpg|25314388] (2012), translated as Waiting for a Hurricane
- the award-winning short-story collection [b:Cosas peores|27222676|Cosas peores|Margarita García Robayo|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1445060755s/27222676.jpg|47265556] (2014), translated as Worse Things
- and the, I believe unpublished in the original, novella Educación sexual, translated as Sexual Education.
The narrator of Waiting for a Hurricane lives on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, where you turn left to continue North, but is desperate to escape. Even as a young child: When people asked me, what do you want to be when you grow up? I’d reply: a foreigner.
The story follows her attempts to make a new life for herself, for example becoming an air hostess, while ultimately struggling to escape. Her ultimate desire is more important than her relationships, which are mainly a means to an end, and when she imagines her life is she stayed and settled with one local boyfriend, she thinks: I’ll always be here, waiting for a hurricane to come.
The seven short stories that comprise Worse Things are all 10-15 pages and deftly sketched portraits of broken lives, with a strong emphasis on bodies that are decaying and places too. In the story from which the title of the English collection is taken, the main character is woken by the pungent smell of boiled fish, one he associates with his wife who used to make fish soup for the patrons of their bar. As he looks at his reflection:
The mirror on the wall reflected the image of a man worn out by working late nights: thin and saggy, his skin transparent like tracing paper, with blue veins snaking all over his body like a hydrographic map of a country with an abundance of rivers. Villafora was the owner of an old bar, which was also his home. The bar was named “Helena” after his wife, who had died from a long and painful disease that took hold of every bone on her body and left her prostrate in bed, delirious. The bar was on the ground floor, it was a spartan place, an industrial drinking hole with wooden tables and chairs, and a large bar with high stools. It had floor-to-ceiling windows looking onto a side-street - in the morning this alleyway was filled with grocery stalls and at night, with prostitutes who, for lack of clients, often came to hang out in a bar. The house was on the upper floor. It consisted of a small living room with a window, and an adjoining bedroom and bathroom. Through the living room window, there was a view of a harbour. It was more of a dumping ground for clapped-out old fishing boats. The city was a tourist resort, the kind of place backpackers and young runaway couples passed through.
In the final story, Sky and Poplars, Ema, although this is never stated explicitly, seems to have had a late miscarriage: a tragedy but her seeminly unemotional reaction has led her husband to leave her and, when she leaves the country to visit her parents, they also struggle to relate to her. A memorable passage 'contrasts' her mother and her sister, Ema's aunt who was neither ugly nor pretty. And as far as Ema could recall, neither was she good at anything in particular. She was utterly unremarkable, Her mother on the other hand was very good at being mediocre at everything she did. She excelled at that: she put a lot of effort into being mediocre.
For a celebrated author, the decision to translate an unpublished story for her English debut might seem odd, but is justified as Sexual Education is perhaps the strongest of the collection, with García Robayo's dark humour, that underlies the other stories, more to the fore.
The first-person narrator attends a strict Catholic girl school, where the girls are given lessons in abstinence, yet in practice the behaviour of even the seemingly pious girls is rather in contrast to what they are taught, with Bill-Clintonesque justifications of what exactly is or is not acceptable. Our narrator is a detached and rather sarcastic observer of both the excessively strict teaching and the contrasting excessively wild behaviour of her classmates.
In one pivotal scene, complete with a Nirvana reference, an older girl has her drink spiked and is then gang raped by 7 boys from the neighbouring religious boys' school. While the boys crime is rather hushed up, the school seems to reserve its greatest condemnation for her parents, for their crime of having a doctor prescribe her the morning after pill. As the headmistress announces the expulsion of the girl:
I was sitting at the back of the classroom, with my headphones hidden under a blanket. Oh no, I know a dirty word, Kurt was whispering in my right ear. The left air was listening attentively to the headmistress, who was announcing the apocalypse, because the unknown potential of a creature with seven fathers had been snubbed out.
Overall, a slightly uneven collection but an interesting and fresh new voice in English, very much fulfilling Charco Press's mission statement, and with another excellent translation from Charlotte Coombe.
3.5 stars rounded up to 4 because of the distinctiveness of Charco Press's output.
literaryinfatuation's review
3.0
This is actually a collection of two novellas and a collection of short stories.
While reading, the question: “are you plot or character driven” kept coming up on my mind. Her characters are so unlikable, but I read in an interview that that’s on purpose. She wanted her characters to be flawed and real, with common passions and frustrations. And I think she managed that pretty well. I was definitely hooked on the plot, and liked how she set the environment, but these novellas and stories are still not action packed. You get the feeling that everything is left in the air, unresolved. Pretty much like real life.
I could relate to that feeling of frustration and stagnation that comes from being born middle class in Latin America. Nothing seems to happen in the middle, yet we all feel that social climbing is a possibility. Through trapped in a society where your family name and distance to power is the only way to ascend the social ladder, middle classes are still under the spell of meritocracy. If I go to the right schools maybe I’ll meet someone with connections that’ll take me somewhere. If I set up my small corner shop selling trinkets or get a taxi concession, a few years of hard work will reap great results. But in reality, we just barely make ends meet most months, get in debt those when we can’t, and generation after generation fight the same problems, carry the same burden.
Fans of American Dirt will say that this collection is not “Latinx enough”. There’s no drug violence, soap opera stars or migrants on top of trains. Just cabin-crew members with dreams of Miami, widows fighting cancer, fishermen struggling with the effects of climate change and catholic school girls sick of misogynistic messages been thrown at them left and right. But it’s definitely the Latin America I knew growing up.
While reading, the question: “are you plot or character driven” kept coming up on my mind. Her characters are so unlikable, but I read in an interview that that’s on purpose. She wanted her characters to be flawed and real, with common passions and frustrations. And I think she managed that pretty well. I was definitely hooked on the plot, and liked how she set the environment, but these novellas and stories are still not action packed. You get the feeling that everything is left in the air, unresolved. Pretty much like real life.
I could relate to that feeling of frustration and stagnation that comes from being born middle class in Latin America. Nothing seems to happen in the middle, yet we all feel that social climbing is a possibility. Through trapped in a society where your family name and distance to power is the only way to ascend the social ladder, middle classes are still under the spell of meritocracy. If I go to the right schools maybe I’ll meet someone with connections that’ll take me somewhere. If I set up my small corner shop selling trinkets or get a taxi concession, a few years of hard work will reap great results. But in reality, we just barely make ends meet most months, get in debt those when we can’t, and generation after generation fight the same problems, carry the same burden.
Fans of American Dirt will say that this collection is not “Latinx enough”. There’s no drug violence, soap opera stars or migrants on top of trains. Just cabin-crew members with dreams of Miami, widows fighting cancer, fishermen struggling with the effects of climate change and catholic school girls sick of misogynistic messages been thrown at them left and right. But it’s definitely the Latin America I knew growing up.