It was as if we'd reached the minimum critical point of a mathematical curve. Imagine a parabola. Zero point down, at the bottom of an abyss. That's how low we sank. The year is 1993. Cuba is at the height of the Special Period, a widespread economic crisis following the collapse of the Soviet bloc.For Julia, a mathematics lecturer who hates teaching, this is Year Zero: the lowest possible point. But a way out appears: the search for a missing document that will prove the telephone was invented in Havana, secure her reputation, and give Cuba a purpose once more.&nbsp;What begins as an investigation into scientific history becomes a tangle of sex, friendship, family legacies, and the intricacies of how people find ways to survive in a country at its lowest ebb.

Havana Year Zero

Literature & Fiction

Suárez, Karla

United States

Charco Press

"a story’s existence, even if not well defined or well assigned, even if only in its formative stage, just barely latent, emits vague but urgent emanations." 
Byobu's every interaction trembles with possibility and faint menace. A crack in the walls of his house, marring it forever, means he must burn it down. A stoplight asks what the value of obedience is, what hopefulness it contains, and what insensible anarchy it defies. In brief episodes, aphorisms, and moments of spiritual turbulence and gentle scrutiny, reside a wealth of habits, worries, curiosities, pleasures, peculiarities, and efforts to understand. 
Representative of the modesty and complexity of Ida Vitale’s poetic universe, Byobu flushes the world with meaning and playfully offers another way of inhabiting the every day.

Byobu

Vitale, Ida

In a rundown apartment building, in an unnamed city in Uruguay, a father and daughter close themselves off from the world. 'The world is this house', says Clara, and the rooftop becomes their last recess of freedom. A pet canary is their only witness.&nbsp; As Clara's connection to the outside is stripped away--the neighbor who stops coming by, the lover whose existence is only known by a pregnancy--desperation and paranoia take hold. It's a stifling embrace, and we are there with her, our narrator, dreading what we know the future holds.

The Rooftop

Trías, Fernanda

Brickmakers

SELVA ALMADA

"Era como si hubiéramos alcanzado el punto crítico mínimo de una curva matemática. ¿Tiene presente una parábola? El cero de abajo, el hueco, el abismo. Hasta ahí llegamos."Corre el año 1993. Cuba está en lo más álgido del Período Especial, un profunda crisis económica tras el colapso del bloque soviético.Para Julia, una profesora de matemática que detesta enseñar, La Habana está en su año cero: el punto más bajo, camino a ninguna parte. Desesperada por tomar las riendas de su vida, Julia se une a Euclides, su colega y ex amante, para emprender la búsqueda del documento que compruebe que el teléfono fue inventado por Antonio Meucci, en La Habana. Creen que esta es la respuesta para proteger su reputación y darle a Cuba un nuevo propósito.A partir de este punto cero, Julia da inicio a una investigación que la acercará a dos hombres que prometen guiarla hasta el documento, y que la verá involucrada en un enredado misterio de pasión, legados familiares y las complejidades de cómo la gente encuentra maneras de sobrevivir en un país que vive la más terrible de sus crisis. 
"It was as if we’d reached the minimum critical point of a mathematical curve. Imagine a parabola. Zero point down, at the bottom of an abyss. That’s how low we sank." 
_The year is 1993. Cuba is at the height of the Special Period, a widespread economic crisis following the collapse of the Soviet bloc. __For Julia, a mathematics lecturer who hates teaching, Havana is at Year Zero: the lowest possible point, going nowhere. Desperate to seize control of her life, Julia teams up with her colleague and former lover, Euclid, to seek out a document that proves the telephone was invented by Antonio Meucci in Havana, convinced it is the answer to secure their reputations and give Cuba a purpose once more. _From this point zero, Julia sets out on an investigation to befriend two men who could help lead to the document’s whereabouts, and must pick apart a tangled mystery of sex, family legacies and the intricacies of how people find ways to survive in a country at its lowest ebb. 
It was as if we’d reached the minimum critical point of a mathematical curve. Imagine a parabola. Zero point down, at the bottom of an abyss. That’s how low we sank. 
The year is 1993. Cuba is at the height of the Special Period, a widespread economic crisis following the collapse of the Soviet bloc.For Julia, a mathematics lecturer who hates teaching, this is Year Zero: the lowest possible point. But a way out appears: the search for a missing document that will prove the telephone was invented in Havana, secure her reputation, and give Cuba a purpose once more. What begins as an investigation into scientific history becomes a tangle of sex, friendship, family legacies, and the intricacies of how people find ways to survive in a country at its lowest ebb.

Habana año cero (Spanish Edition)

En un apartamento en ruinas, en una ciudad uruguaya sin nombre, un padre y su hija se encierran y se aíslan del mundo exterior. “El mundo es esta casa”, dice Clara. La azotea se vuelve su último y único acceso a la libertad. Hay un solo testigo: el canario.A medida que los vínculos de Clara con el afuera se van extinguiendo -la vecina que deja de venir, el novio cuya existencia es aparente solo a través de un embarazo-, la desesperación y la paranoia van tomando protagonismo. Es un abrazo que asfixia, y nosotros estamos aquí con ella, nuestra narradora, aterrados ante lo que trae el devenir. 
_In a rundown apartment building, in an unnamed city in Uruguay, a father and daughter close themselves off from the world. ‘The world is this house’, says Clara, and the rooftop becomes their last recess of freedom. A pet canary is their only witness. _As Clara’s connection to the outside is stripped away―the neighbor who stops coming by, the lover whose existence is only known by a pregnancy―desperation and paranoia take hold. It's a stifling embrace, and we are there with her, our narrator, dreading what we know the future holds. 
In a rundown apartment building, in an unnamed city in Uruguay, a father and daughter close themselves off from the world. ‘The world is this house’, says Clara, and the rooftop becomes their last recess of freedom. A pet canary is their only witness. 
As Clara’s connection to the outside is stripped away―the neighbor who stops coming by, the lover whose existence is only known by a pregnancy―desperation and paranoia take hold. It's a stifling embrace, and we are there with her, our narrator, dreading what we know the future holds.

La Azotea (Spanish Edition)

The third and final installment of Ariana Harwicz's "Involuntary Trilogy" finds us on familiar, disquieting ground. Under the spell of a mother’s madness, the French countryside transforms into a dreamscape of interconnected imagery: animals, desire, the functions of the body. Most troublingly: the comfort of a teenage son. Scorning the bourgeois mores and conventionality of their small town, she withdraws him from school and the two embark on ever more antisocial and dangerous behavior. Harwicz is at her best here, building an interior world so robust, and so grotesque, that it eclipses our shared reality. Savage, and savagely funny, she leaves us singed, if not scorched.

Tender

HARWICZ, ARIANA

A failing artist turned forger, an architectural masterpiece hidden behind high walls, an impish vagabond, and some very resourceful, very intimidating twins―Forgery pays homage to greats like Juan Rulfo and Luis Barragán, traversing late 20th Century Guadalajara with the exuberance and eccentricity of an 18th Century picaresque.

The Forgery

Barrera, Ave

Product Description José Federico Burgos es un pintor frustrado devenido falsificador, atrapado en un esplendor surrealista y algo alarmante que involucra una obra maestra flamenca, un vagabundo pícaro y dos hermanos mellizos tan intimidantes como ingeniosos. Él bebe demasiado alcohol, deambula por la zona y, cada día que pasa sin lograr copiar la pintura, se acerca un poco más hacia lo que realmente sucede tras los altos muros del jardín.En homenaje a grandes como Juan Rulfo y Luis Barragán, _Puertas demasiado pequeñas _de Ave Barrera recorre la Guadalajara de fines del siglo XX con la exuberancia y excentricidad de una novela picaresca del siglo XVIII. Una travesura magnífica y lúdica que se adentra en asuntos como la identidad, el arte y la amistad; un retrato audaz, divertido e íntimo del México contemporáneo digno de El Bosco. _The Spanish language edition of The Forgery. A failing artist turned forger, an architectural masterpiece hidden behind high walls, an impish vagabond, and some very resourceful, very intimidating twins―Forgery pays homage to greats like Juan Rulfo and Luis Barragán, traversing late 20th Century Guadalajara with the exuberance and eccentricity of an 18th Century picaresque. _A failing artist turned forger, an architectural masterpiece hidden behind high walls, an impish vagabond, and some very resourceful, very intimidating twins―Forgery pays homage to greats like Juan Rulfo and Luis Barragán, traversing late 20th Century Guadalajara with the exuberance and eccentricity of an 18th Century picaresque. Review "Una obra acerca del poder que le otorgamos a las cosas, una discusión sobre el fondo y la forma de la obra artística, un muestrario de la conducta humana, sobre todo cuando linda con la locura." ―El Economista"Ave Barrera nos introduce en un espacio silencioso y vacío, tan material como abstracto: el de la creación artística. Logra meternos con extrema naturalidad en este microcosmos tan raro y chocante como verdadero, gracias a la construcción de poderosas atmósferas ―¬las que emanan de esos espacios tan singulares, con sus personajes y también con sus objetos, luces, tonos…― que desprenden muy variadas sensaciones, y que recorren un abanico que abarca desde las alucinaciones oníricas hasta el espanto y el horror y la belleza." ―El País"Hay que poner mucha atención al trabajo –escrito y por escribir– de Ave Barrera"" ―Cristina Rivera Garza, autora de NADIE ME VERÁ LLORAR"La trama fluye de manera inteligente y audaz: sorprende por la sencillez y malicia con que se resuelven aspectos técnicos complejos. Así, la novela atrapa por la fluidez y contundencia con que se desarrollan los hechos, el humor permanente que le imprime su narrador-personaje, y la intriga picaresca sobre los intentos de un millonario excéntrico y un pintor muerto de hambre de Guadalajara para falsificar un cuadro renacentista y así estafar a unos herederos en Europa."" ―Geney Beltrán Félix"Un relato ameno, divertido y poseedor de una gran calidad literaria." ―Milenio"Ave apenas empieza a volar." ―Diario Xalapa"La novela me ha gustado muchísimo; Ave Barrera es capaz de crear un ambiente muy inquietante. Está deliciosamente escrita, llena de hallazgos. (…) Me ha parecido todo un descubrimiento." ―Radio 3 (RTVE)Praise for Ave Barrera About the Author Ave Barrera (Guadalajara, 1980) es escritora y editora. Su primera novela titulada Puertas demasiado pequeñas (Alianza, 2016) obtuvo el premio Sergio Galindo. El libro de artista 21,000 Princesas, realizado en coautoría con Lola Horner obtuvo el 1er lugar en el Concurso Internacional de Libro de Artista Lía 2015. Su más reciente novela, Restauración obtuvo el Premio Lipp la Brasserie en 2018. Ha publicado sus cuentos y relatos en diversas antologías y medios electrónicos. Actualmente trabaja como editora de la Colección Vindictas, de la Dirección General de Publicaciones, de la UNAM.Ave Barrera (Guadalajara, México, 1980) holds a Bachelor in Hispanic Literat

Puertas demasiado pequeñas (Spanish Edition)

The mysteries of kinship (families born into and families made) take disconcerting and familiar shapes in these refreshingly frank short stories. A family is haunted by a beast that splatters fruit against its walls every night, another undergoes a near-collision with a bus on the way home from the beach. Mothers are cold, fathers are absent―we know these moments in the abstract, but Adaui makes each as uncanny as our own lives: close but not yet understood.

Here Be Icebergs

ADAUI, KATYA

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