Monday at Zenda. Monday of narrative in Spanish. This Monday, devoted to Hay que llegar a las casas, the debut novel of Argentine writer Ezequiel Pérez (born in Villa Ramallo, 1987), originally published in 2021 and now revived, in a new edition, by the publishing house Eterna Cadencia. Working with the specific atmosphere of the Argentine territory, more precisely the one that runs along the Paraná River, Pérez crafts a narrative about how the ways of experiencing time diverge between the urban space of the big city and the rural realm shaped by gentrifying policies that devour it.
La propia editorial apunta, a propósito del libro: “
Lejos de la épica homérica, un joven regresa a su pueblo natal después de años de ausencia. He has just learned of his brother Andrés’s death. Upon arriving, he is met by Abel, his father, along with two other old friends. The three inhabit a suspended time, made up of drunkenness and endless socializing over mate in a small town on the banks of the Paraná, where the photographs inside the houses do not refresh, as if there were no new stories to tell or remember. Yet this apparent calm hides a chilling secret that grows unstoppable as the night advances and gunshots are heard closer and closer. With a spare and suggestive style, Ezequiel Pérez builds a suffocating atmosphere, with the river as the sole memory-bearing witness. Hay que llegar a las casas, his first novel, now widely recognized, has become an indispensable book of contemporary Argentine literature”.
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Author: Ezequiel Pérez. Title: Hay que llegar a las casas. Publisher: Eterna Cadencia. Available at: Todos tus libros.