The Wind That Lays Waste, Selva Almada
The Wind That Lays Waste, Selva Almada
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The Wind That Lays Waste
A Novel

Author: Selva Almada, Chris Andrews

Narrator: Almarie Guerra

Unabridged: 3 hr 10 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/09/2019


Synopsis

The Wind That Lays Waste begins in the great pause before a storm. Reverend Pearson is evangelizing across the Argentinian countryside with Leni, his teenage daughter, when their car breaks down. This act of God or fate leads them to the workshop and home of an aging mechanic called Gringo Brauer and a young boy named Tapioca.

As a long day passes, curiosity and intrigue transform into an unexpected intimacy between four people: one man who believes deeply in God, morality, and his own righteousness, and another whose life experiences have only entrenched his moral relativism and mild apathy; a quietly earnest and idealistic mechanic's assistant, and a restless, skeptical preacher's daughter. As tensions between these characters ebb and flow, beliefs are questioned and allegiances are tested, until finally the growing storm breaks over the plains.

Selva Almada's exquisitely crafted debut, with its limpid and confident prose, is profound and poetic, a tactile experience of the mountain, the sun, the squat trees, the broken cars, the sweat-stained shirts, and the destroyed lives. The Wind That Lays Waste is a philosophical, beautiful, and powerfully distinctive novel that marks the arrival in English of an author whose talent and poise are undeniable.

About Selva Almada

Selva Almada was born in Entre Rios, Argentina, in 1973. She has been a finalist for the Rodolfo Walsh and Tigre Juan prizes, and is considered one of the most potent and promising literary voices in Argentina and Latin America.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Lark

This novel is small in scale--just four characters, on a single day--but in spite of its small scale, it's full of human experience. With just a few perfectly chosen details Almada sets a scene, and reveals her characters' imperfections and humanity. I could see this place. I could see these people.......more

Goodreads review by Jim

Only four characters appear in this novel by an Argentinian woman author. Two are men and both are known as ‘gringos’ because of their non-Spanish names (Pearson and Brauer), although both are Spanish-speaking and both were born in Argentina. One is a traveling evangelical preacher; the other is an......more

Charco Press is perhaps my favourite small UK press – they focus on “finding outstanding contemporary Latin American literature and bringing it to new readers in the English-speaking world”. I have read all 12 of their previous novels. Their 2017/early 2018 set of 5 novels were all by Argentinian aut......more