A review by sidharthvardhan
The Remainder by Alia Trabucco Zerán

5.0

This book is like one of those paintings which you could love without knowing their cultural or historical background which have high influence on the work of art. Coetzee talked about a scene in Robinson Crusoe in which the titular character discovered some shoes or something to realise that there would be read bodies in here. This whole book occurs in a sort of world that is like those shoes - an afterburn of immense violence that occurred in as Chile fought it's military rule as it rediscovers democracy. The story is written from point of view of militants' children. Not much happens in the book but it is still amazing. Psychological depth with which characters are built, an impresssionist style while building the world full of death, the somewhat obvious metaphors like children of militants carrying the dead weight of corpses of their parents looking for a place to bury them and often some timely humour amidst all that.... They all make this small book a powerful pill of literature.