A novel by Juan Cardenas, translated by Lizzie Davis
June 2, 2020 5 x 7.75 144 pages 978-1-56689-580-4
The lives of a doctor, his wife, and his patient collide, laying bare the political and personal narratives they havecarefully constructed for themselves.
Adoctor recruits volunteers for the trial of a new recreational drug that exclusively affects women. Among them is number 4, who becomes emotionally involved with first the scientist, then his wife, a well-known visual artist in the midst of a creative crisis. The scientist is oblivious to the atrocities his new drug will bring to the city; his wife is oblivious to the superfluousness of the objects she has committed her life to exhibiting in galleries and museums. Number 4s presence pierces the couples complacency, gradually undoing the many certainties theyve accumulated in their lives of ease.
About the Author
Juan Crdenas (1978) is a Colombian art critic, curator, translator, and author of the novels Zumbido (451 Editores, 2010; Perifrica, 2017), Los estratos (Perifrica, 2013), Ornamento (Perifrica, 2015), T y yo, una novelita rusa (Cajn de sastre, 2016) and El diablo de las provincias (Perifrica, 2017). He is also the author of the short story collection Carreras delictivas (451 Editores, 2008). He has translated the works of such writers as William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, Gordon Lish, David Ohle, J. M. Machado de Assis, and Ea de Queirs. In 2014, his novel Los estratos received the Otras Voces Otros mbitos Prize. In May 2017, he was named one of thethirty-nine best Latin American writers under the age of thirty-nine by the Hay Festival in Bogot. Crdenas currently coordinates the masters program in creative writing at the Caro y Cuervo Institute in Bogot, where he works as a professor and researcher.
About the Translator
Lizzie Davis is a translator from Spanish to English and editor at Coffee House Press. Her recent projects include works by Pilar Fraile Amador, Daniela Tarazona, and Elena Medel, and her co-translation of Medel'sLasmaravillaswith Thomas Bunstead is forthcoming from Pushkin Press. She has received fellowships from the Omi International Arts Center and the Breadloaf Translators' Conference in support of her translations.
Praise forOrnamental