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Luis Sepúlveda Chile
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The author, born in northern Chile in 1949, has written
short stories, novellas, plays and essays. Due to his political activities in
the students’ movement he was forced to leave Chile and then travelled through
Latin America. In 1980 he moved to Germany where he lived with his family for
more than ten years. Since 1997 Sepúlveda lives in Gijón, Spain. He is
translated in over thirty languages and has won numerous literary awards, among
others the Primavera de Novela Prize
2009, one of the most prestigious and valuable awards in Spain.
Sepúlveda’s
most successful novel to date is the story of Antonio José Bolívar Proaño, an
old man who reads love stories, Un viejo que
leía novelas de amor. The old man lives in El Idilio, a small village in
the Amazon region, on which civilization is slowly encroaching. With great
suspense the author describes the conflict caused by the confrontation between
nature and civilization, without, however, glorifying nature or the life of the
Indians.
The old Man who read Love Stories is magical, thanks to the author’s skill at describing jungle life.
Readers will be enchanted by this finely wrought tale.
David
Unger, THE NEW YORK TIMES
Sepúlveda’s
readers are aware of his great passion: travelling, wandering through the
world, observing its peoples and listening to their stories. But the author has
another passion, you could say in symbiosis with the first one, which is, that
he loves to tell stories his way, stories he has heard elsewhere, and others
which, thanks to his overwhelming narrative capacity, enrich reality,
transforming them into literature like in Patagonia Express or in Desencuentros
(“Disencounters”).
The
enchanting story of a little sea-gull and a big black fat cat, Historia de
una gaviota y del gato que le enseñó a volar (“The Story of a Seagull and of the Cat who taught her to fly”), which
takes place in the harbour of Hamburg, Sepúlveda’s “home”-town for many years.
The book has become one of the favourites of young and adult readers and is a
bestseller in many countries all over the world until today.
Together
with Mario Delgado Aparaín, Sepúlveda wrote Los peores cuentos de los
hermanos Grim (“The worst Stories of the Grim Brothers”), a humorous
epistolary novel. A Patagonian and a Uruguayan professor mean to investigate
the life of Caín and Abel, two musicians and poets of the early 20th
century. Feeling extremely important, they mainly talk about women, alcohol and
money, witty parody of history, science and adventure stories
In La
lámpara de Aladino ("Aladdin's Wonderlamp ") Luis Sepúlveda once
again spirits the reader into the magical world of his storytelling. He
stretches a broad sky above his cast of characters: clouds heavy with snow
above a Hamburg station where the homeless and the lovesick seek a little
warmth. The green leafy roof of the Amazonas, which slowly but surely overgrows
a place that was once a haven of friendship. Blinding
sunlight over the Rio Carnival, which two women use for a con trick. A starry firmament in the Orient, under which a man dreams of a
romantic encounter. The Straights of Magellan and
their mountains, in which nature is desolate and life is harsh and simple.
The endless vastness of Patagonia, where a lonely tree defies
the perpetual winds. The characters are sometimes lonely and sometimes
have to go their separate ways. But again and again they stand together in
friendship, solidarity and love. And it truly exists, Aladdin's magiclamp which
holds a
delightful surprise, not just for its owner.
35 years on from Pinochet's putsch, the three former exiles Cacho, Lolo
and Lucho meet up again in their home of Chile, as La sombra de lo que
fuimos (“A Shadow of What We Were”): pot-bellied, balding and grey-bearded.
They are reunited in a tumbledown shack, but at least they have wine and fried
chicken. The three men's plan is to finally unearth a treasure the police have
never tracked down: the loot from the famous bank robbery of 16 July 1925, its
anniversary fast approaching.
While they wait for the grandson of Pedro Nolasco Arratia, who was directly involved in the heist itself, a marital row is brewing at the home of Coco Aravena and his wife Concha, with all sorts of domestic appliances flying out of the window. An unfortunate passer-by is killed by a falling record player, and even more unfortunately that passer-by is Pedro's grandson, the fourth friend in on the plan. Coco shall go instead of him and is recognized as an old comrade, amazing his re-found friends with the story he tells. And they decide to go all out one last time: "Well? Are we all in then? -Lolo Garmendia asked, and they raised their glasses in unison on that rainy night in Santiago."
Early next morning, they make their way into the Café Dragón Feliz,
where they actually find the money and documents they had suspected there and
this time the press reports on the story in all detail. Coco and his wife,
meanwhile, leave the interrogation a free man and woman, holding hands like a
love-struck young couple. On this 16 July, they say, it even stopped raining in
Santiago.
Affectionate, funny and with a good pinch of irony, Sepúlveda's novel
tells of society's losers, who have never lost their faith in humour and love and so end up as
winners after all.
An amazing book, a mixture of heartbreak and humour.
The
Huffington Post
Sepúlveda’s magical prose becomes a tense masterpiece, drawing as
much from Hemingway as from the tradition of magical realism.
The Times
Those who don’t know Sepúlveda yet will delight in
this authentic, pure and powerful narrator.
El País
In his new
short story collection Historias de aquí y de allá
(“Stories from Here and There”), Luis Spúlveda gathers up his recollections of
an eventful life. Through his inimitable narrative force, he masterfully
transfigures observations and episodes into fascinating stories. In 1990
Sepúlveda returned home for the first time after fourteen years in exile, in
his luggage a photo of five children taken coincidentally in the late 1970s.
The aim of his journey was to find these children and photograph the group
again. He managed to do so, but there was a gap in the picture – one of the
children was no longer alive. Taking this boy’s story as his starting point,
Sepúlveda writes about the state of Chile after seventeen years of
dictatorship, his critical but affectionate and humorous stories set in various
Latin American countries sending messages from a world that no longer exists.
Luis
Sepúlveda's latest project Últimas
noticias del Sur ("Last News from the
South"), a book combining texts and photos reading like a novel, has its
roots in a journey to Patagonia undertaken with the well-known photographer
Daniel Mordzinski. Describing beautiful encounters in a magical landscape, the authors
evoke a Patagonia lost, making the reader feel a little bit closer to heaven.
Luis Sepúlveda is head of the Salón del Libro Iberoamericano in Gijón.
Visit the Salon’s website: www.literastur.com
Rights sold in over 40 languages, several film
adaptations. Please ask for separate list.
Novels:
Un
viejo que leía novelas de amor
Barcelona:
Tusquets 1989, 137 p.
Mundo
del fin del mundo
Barcelona:
Tusquets 1989, 145 p.
Nombre de torero
Barcelona:
Tusquets 1994, 223 p.
Historia
de una gaviota y del gato que le enseñó a volar
Barcelona: Tusquets 1996, 138 p.
Diario de un killer
sentimental seguido de Yacaré
Barcelona: Tusquets 1998, 140 p.
Hot
Line
Barcelona: Ediciones B 2001, 94 p.
Together with Mario Delgado Aparaín:
Los peores cuentos de los hermanos Grim
Barcelona:
Roca 2004 ● Buenos Aires: Seix Barral 2004, 220 p
La sombra de lo que fuimos, Barcelona: Espasa Calpe 2009, 174 p.
Últimas noticias del Sur
Photos by
Daniel Mordzinski
Barcelona:
Espasa Calpe 2012, 215 p.
Stories:
Patagonia Express
Barcelona:
Tusquets 1995, 178 p.
Desencuentros
Barcelona:
Tusquets 1997, 240 p.
Historias marginales
Barcelona: Seix Barral 2000, 153 p.
La lámpara de Aladino
Barcelona:
Tusquets 2008, 174 p.
Historias de aquí y de allá
Barcelona:
Norma 2010, 138 p.
Other texts:
La locura de Pinochet y otros artículos
Gijón: Literastur 2002, 100 p.
Moleskine, apuntes y reflexiones
Barcelona: Ed.
B 2004, 268 p.
El poder de los sueños
Santiago de
Chile: Aún creemos en los sueños 2004, 63 p.
Los
calzoncillos de Carolina Huechuraba
Santiago de
Chile: Aún creemos en los sueños 2006, 66 p.
Participation in anthologies:
Cuentos
apátridas
Barcelona:
Ediciones B 1999
Cuentos
del mar
Barcelona:
Ediciones B 2001
Tu nombre flotando en el adiós
Barcelona:
Ediciones B 2003
Poesie
senza patria
Italy: Guanda
2003