In this debut novel by Chilean writer Maria José Ferrada, one of the most important representatives of the generation of young writers who carry the 20th century Latin American literary heritage with competence, a seven-year-old boy explores the world in a thousand and one ways with his father.
Seven-year-old M skips school with his father D, making up false excuses, moving from one town to another, going door to door to hardware stores. M learns the science of salesmanship from his father, and in order to sell the Kramp brand materials, the catalog of which he knows by heart, he either plays the role of a sick girl or bends his neck and stares at the shopkeeper. On the other hand, the bitter history of Chile, a country in the grip of a military coup, unfolds. E, a photographer who wants to join M and her father’s life and accompany them on their travels, is in search of something else in the darkness of Chile.
One of the 20th century Latin American literary heritage, Chilean writer María José Ferrada’s debut novel has been translated into many languages. Known for his children’s books, in Kramp Ferrada tells the story of a seven-year-old boy exploring the world in a thousand and one ways with his father, in a style as soft as it is sharp.
“A single screw can bring about the end of the world.”
…
MARÍA JOSÉ FERRADA was born in Chile in 1977. She studied at the Universities of Diego Portales and Barcelona, where she obtained a master’s degree in Asia-Pacific studies. He has received numerous literary awards for his work, including the Academia Chilena de la Lengua and the Premio Municipal de Literatura de Santiago. Her children’s books have been published in many countries, including Spain, Argentina and Colombia. He is currently the editor of Chile para Niños, the National Library of Chile’s digital resource center for children. Ferrada describes Kramp, for which he has won numerous awards, including three of Chile’s top literary prizes, as an “autobiographical story” inspired by his own childhood travels with his father, who was also a salesman. Translated into Italian, Portuguese, Danish, German and English, the novel was listed as one of the best novels of 2021 by the San Francisco Chronicle and one of the hundred most important translations of 2021 by World Literature Today.
…
EMRAH IMRE was born in Istanbul in 1980 and studied Linguistics and Comparative Literature at the University of Auckland. She has translated from Portuguese, Spanish, English, French and Catalan. Emrah İmre, who worked as an editor at Can Publishing for more than twelve years, has translated works by authors such as José Saramago, Gabriel García Márquez, Luisa Valenzuela, Jorge Luis Borges, José Mauro de Vasconcelos, Mario Vargas Llosa, Carlos Fuentes, Virginia Woolf, Luis Sepúlveda, Tina Vallès, Fernando Pessoa, Samanta Schweblin, César Aira into Turkish.
TITLE
Book Title: Kramp
Author: María José Ferrada
Translator: Emrah Imre
Publisher: Can Yayınları
Series: Contemporary
Genre: Novel
Page Count: 104
