Abyss (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781642861228)

A 2023 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN TRANSLATED LITERATURE FINALIST

By the Colombian author of The Bitch, a 2020 National Book Award Finalist and PEN Awards Winner

"An eight-year-old girl takes in a series of troubling events
in this luminous and transfixing account of fractured family life from
Colombian writer Quintana (The
Bitch). Readers will be dazzled." -Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW

Claudia is an impressionable eight-year-old girl, trying to understand the world through the eyes of the adults around her. But her hardworking father hardly speaks a word, while her unhappy mother spends her days reading celebrity lifestyle magazines, tending to her enormous collection of plants, and filling Claudia's head with stories about women who end their lives in tragic ways. Then an interloper arrives, disturbing the delicate balance of family life, and Claudia's world starts falling apart. In this strikingly vivid portrait of Cali, Colombia, Claudia's acute observations remind us that children are capable of discerning extremely complex realities even if they cannot fully understand them. In Abyss, Quintana leads us brilliantly into the lonely heart of the child we have all once been, driven by fear of abandonment.

Author: Pilar Quintana
ISBN-10: 1642861227
ISBN-13: 9781642861228
Publisher: World Editions
Language: English
Published: 02/07/2023
Pages: 226
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.58lbs
Size: 7.95h x 4.95w x 0.60d
Award: National Book Awards - Finalist

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 10/24/2022
Shelf Awareness 02/24/2023