CHILDISH LITERATURE
Alejandro Zambra
Translated by Megan McDowell
How do we write about the singular experience of parenthood? Written in a ‘state of attachment’, or ‘under the influence’ of fatherhood, Childish Literature is an eclectic guide for novice parents, showing how the birth and growth of a child changes not only the present and the future, but also reshapes our perceptions of the past.
Shifting from moving dispatches from his son’s first year of existence, to a treatise on ‘football sadness’, to a psychedelic narrative where a man tries, mid-magic mushroom trip, to re-learn the subtle art of crawling, this latest work from Alejandro Zambra shows how children shield adults from despondency, self-absorption and the tyrannies of chronological time. At once a chronicle of fatherhood, a letter to a child and a work of fiction, Childish Literature is the latest, virtuosic addition to the oeuvre of one of the most exciting Latin American writers in recent decades.
Fitzcarraldo Editions (publisher’s description)
About the Author & Translator
Alejandro Zambra was born in Santiago, Chile, in 1975. He is the author of the novels Chilean Poet, Multiple Choice, Ways of Going Home, The Private Lives of Trees and Bonsai; the short story collection My Documents; and the essay collection Not to Read. The recipient of numerous prizes, including a Cullman Center Fellowship from the New York Public Library, his stories have appeared in the New Yorker, Paris Review, Granta, McSweeney’s and Harper’s, among others. He lives in Mexico City.
Megan McDowell has translated many of the most important Latin American writers working today. Her translations have won the National Book Award for Translated Literature, the English PEN award, the Premio Valle-Inclán, and two O. Henry Prizes, and have been nominated for the International Booker Prize four times and the Kirkus Prize. Her short story translations have been featured in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The New York Times Magazine, Tin House, McSweeney’s, and Granta, among others. In 2020 she won an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is from Richmond, KY and lives in Santiago, Chile.
(Photo: Mabel Maldonado)