Darwin or the origin of old age

Federico Jeanmaire

NOVEL. ALIANZA, 2022. 216 PAGES.

UNICAJA FERNANDO QUIÑONES NOVEL PRIZE

A man gets out of a plane on the Galapagos Islands. He's a musician and has chosen to come to this mysterious, remote part of the world to spend his sixtieth birthday because in addition to being an avid reader of Darwin he wants to get as far away from his old life as he can: he has fallen in love with a woman, Rut, who thinks he's far too old for her. So, the firm believer in the primacy of irony as the highest form of humour embarks upon a spellbinding trip around the islands, looking back over his life and the passage of time, to tell an intimate story about different forms of male love, acting as a kind of guide to the history of humanity and, of course, lamenting the absence of Rut at every turn.

 

CTXT. Review

La Vanguardia. The book of the day.

La Vanguardia. Argentinian Literature. 

RTVE. Historias de papel. 

The Objective. Review

La Nación. Review

La Voz de Cádiz. Interview

El Correo Gallego. Books recommendations.

Página 12. Review

"His novels, written with an even language, are sophisticated and at time experimental, that hide behind an apparent simplicity some of the boldest bets of the Argentinian narrative."

 

Hinde Pomeraniec, Vidas prestadas

 

"Short-phrased and broken-paced, yet exquisitely fluid, Jeanmaire dismembers sentiment with a vivid sincerity that thrills in an elegant and fine novel where is a shout to procreation and desire."

 

Galo Abrain, The Objective

 

"Jeanmaire's narrative is about the pleasure of narrating. Knowing how to get held by the details, to enjoy going off the rails and then returning to the center of the story. About respect for the well-written page, about producing some aesthetic emotion in the reader who goes beyond the unexpected plot twists. To take literature with the seriousness of the playful and free-spirited Nabokov."

 

Rubén A. Arribas, CTXT

 

"t is in the delay that Jeanmaire's literature is generated, in the space that opens up between experience and its subsequent reflection, between observation and recording."

 

Carolina Esses, La Nación

 

"The look that one has of oneself rarely coincides with the look that others have of one; and it is precisely from this break that Darwin or the origin of old age becomes a highly original novel. [...] is among Federico Jeanmaire's best novels."

 

Sebastián Basualdo, Página 12

PUBLISHED BY: Spanish ALIANZA | Italian PESSIME IDEE

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