Selva Almada was born in Entre Ríos, Argentina, in 1973. She has been a finalist for the Rodolfo Walsh and Tigre Juan prizes, and is considered one of the most potent and promising literary voices in Argentina and Latin America.
Chris Andrews teaches at the University of Western Sydney. He has translated books of fiction by Latin American authors, including Roberto Bolaño's Distant Star, César Aira's The Musical Brain and Other Stories, and Rodrigo Rey Rosa's Severina.
"Like Flannery O'Connor and Juan Rulfo, Almada fills her taut,
eerie novel with an understanding of rural life, loneliness,
temptation and faith."--BBC Culture "Perhaps most powerful in the
book is Almada's focus on detail--she skillfully renders the story
of a day in brief chapters that reveal the thoughts and fleeting
encounters of characters, who are largely living inside
themselves."--Ploughshares "Almada's nuanced approach leaves room
to explore her characters' pasts in some detail, but, crucially,
these individuals . . . are not defined by their
mistakes."--Zyzzyva "A dynamic introduction to a major Latin
American literary force."--Shelf Awareness, starred review
"Argentinian fiction writer and poet Almada makes her
English-language debut with a slender tale redolent of Flannery
O'Connor. . . . [The Wind That Lays Waste is] fueled by alcohol,
religious symbolism, and doubt. . . . The story packs a punch in
its portraits of
a man who exalts heaven and another who protests."--Kirkus Reviews
"The drama of this refreshingly unpredictable debut . . . smolders
like a lit fuse waiting to touch off its well-orchestrated events.
. . . A stimulating, heady story."--Publishers Weekly "Almada
weaves together a quick and tightly told novel. . . . Capturing the
soul of rural South America, a place of longstanding truths and
pivotal conversions, [The Wind That Lays Waste] is Almada's debut
novel and her first work to be translated into English. She's been
billed as a 'promising voice' in Latin American literature, and
this tale delivers readily on that promise."--Booklist "The Wind
That Lays Waste is elegant and stark, a kind of emblem or vision
fetched from the far edges of things, arrested and stripped to its
essence, as beautiful as it is unnerving. Selva Almada burns off
all the dross and gives us pure revelation, cryptic and
true."--Paul Harding, author of Tinkers "The Wind That Lays Waste
is a mesmerizing novel, at once strange and compelling."--Bonnie Jo
Campbell, author of Mothers, Tell Your Daughters
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