Cat sitter, insomniac, former schoolteacher. Ania worries she is a “stand-in occupant,” a substitute in her own life. When she receives a request from her father to visit her dying uncle Agustín in Argentina, she makes the long journey across the Andes from Chile to Campana, where her family immigrated from Italy. Her trip, one she used to make every summer with her father, will be an escape from the present and a journey to the borders of memory.
What follows is an ambitious portrait of alienation and belonging, and of two families and countries separated by a range of mountains. Threaded together with encyclopedia entries, pages from an old immigrant manual, typing class exercises, passages from children’s books, half-faded photos, and letters mailed between continents, The Touch System introduces Alejandra Costamagna as one of the most powerful and subtle writers in contemporary Latin American literature.
"Lo que me interesa es el trabajo con la frase, con la cadencia, con el tono". "El trabajo con el material de un modo orgánico". "Poner lo importante al lado de lo que no lo es". "Torcer la escala de lo narrable". "Que la mirada se pose sobre los problemas en sordina". "Escribimos para entender lo que escribimos", son algunas de las ideas que pone sobre la mesa Alejandra Costamagna en nuestra conversación. Una de las escritoras más fascinantes de la literatura contemporánea, es periodista y doctora en literatura. Ha publicado innumerables novelas y libros de ...