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Title details for Chilean Poet by Alejandro Zambra - Available

Chilean Poet

A Novel

by Alejandro Zambra
Megan McDowell
Audiobook
1 of 2 copies available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 2 copies available
A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
A WALL STREET JOURNAL TOP 10 BOOK OF THE YEAR
ONE OF NPR’S “BOOKS WE LOVE”
“A tender and funny story about love, family and the peculiar position of being a stepparent…[Chilean Poet] broadens the author’s scope and quite likely his international reputation.” —Los Angeles Times
“Zambra [is] one of the most brilliant Latin American writers of his generation.” —The New York Review of Books 
“Zambra's books have long shown him to be a writer who, at the sentence level, is in a world all his own.” —Juan Vidal, NPR.org
A writer of “startling talent” (The New York Times Book Review), Alejandro Zambra returns with his most substantial work yet: a story of fathers and sons, ambition and failure, and what it means to make a family
After a chance encounter at a Santiago nightclub, aspiring poet Gonzalo reunites with his first love, Carla. Though their desire for each other is still intact, much has changed: among other things, Carla now has a six-year-old son, Vicente. Soon the three form a happy sort-of family—a stepfamily, though no such word exists in their language.
 
Eventually, their ambitions pull the lovers in different directions—in Gonzalo’s case, all the way to New York. Though Gonzalo takes his books when he goes, still, Vicente inherits his ex-stepfather’s love of poetry. When, at eighteen, Vicente meets Pru, an American journalist literally and figuratively lost in Santiago, he encourages her to write about Chilean poets—not the famous, dead kind, your Nerudas or Mistrals or Bolaños, but rather the living, striving, everyday ones. Pru’s research leads her into this eccentric community—another kind of family, dysfunctional but ultimately loving. Will it also lead Vicente and Gonzalo back to each other?
 
In Chilean Poet, Alejandro Zambra chronicles with enormous tenderness and insight the small moments—sexy, absurd, painful, sweet, profound—that make up our personal histories. Exploring how we choose our families and how we betray them, and what it means to be a man in relationships—a partner, father, stepfather, teacher, lover, writer, and friend—it is a bold and brilliant new work by one of the most important writers of our time.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    February 15, 2022

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780593553121
      • File size: 346709 KB
      • Duration: 12:02:18

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      December 20, 2021
      Chilean writer Zambra (Multiple Choice) is best known in English for his experimental stories and novellas, tendencies he sheds to mixed results in this multigenerational story about South American poets. The reader first meets Gonzalo in 1991, when he is a teenager working out his first poems and his love for the beautiful Carla, who breaks up with him. Nine years later, the two meet by chance in Santiago, by which time Carla has a precocious son named Vicente. Nominally more responsible than the boy’s birth father, Gonzalo becomes a de facto stepfather to Vicente. In the second half, Zambra covers Vicente’s teenage years and his early efforts as a poet as he becomes entangled at 18 with an American journalist named Pru, 31, who has fled an abusive relationship to write a history of Chilean poetry, and with a duplicitous fellow poet, Pato López López (“You guys are like Bolaño characters,” Pru says of them). Eventually, Gonzalo and Vicente’s paths cross again, reuniting them as a surrogate family of poets. The painstaking details and plodding pace can make this a slog, but there’s no questioning Zambra’s deep affection for writers grasping at love. The author always shows a great deal of heart, but it comes through best in his shorter work. Agent: Sarah Chalfant, Wylie Agency.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Gisela Ch�pe does a beautiful job narrating this touching--and at times hilarious--novel about fatherhood. The story takes place in Maip�, Chile, and shifts between the 1990s and the present day, centering on aspiring poet Gonzalo and his stepson, Vicente. Gonzalo helps raise Vicente for several years but suddenly goes to New York. Later, when Gonzalo returns to Chile, he reconnects with Vicente, now a young adult. Vicente, once a precocious child, wants to become a poet. The bond between stepfather and stepson is touching. Curiously, a story that focuses on two men is narrated by a woman. Ch�pe does an impressive job of giving each character a distinct voice. She masterfully switches from English to English with a Spanish accent to Spanish with no accent. A.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
    • Library Journal

      Starred review from September 1, 2022

      Zambra's (Multiple Choice; Ways of Going Home) literary novel is full of tender connection, romance, humor, and love for poetry. Parts one and two follow the passionate connections between Gonzalo, a tender-hearted poet, and Carla, an assertive, no-nonsense knockout. Later, the novel moves on to Carla's son, Vicente, who comes of age as an aspiring poet in present-day Santiago and is faced with his own set of romantic highs and lows. Zambra provides a lighthearted homage to the legacy of Chilean poetry while following his characters through their entanglements, heartbreaks, and reunions. While sometimes sad, there is so much humor and sweetness woven into this novel that listeners will be left with a sense of joy. Gisela Chipe's narration is lively, and her tone matches the playful, tongue-in-cheek style of Zambra's storytelling. Chipe's fluent Spanish ensures a seamless listening experience. Those familiar with the tradition of Latin American poetry, as well as fans of Zambra's previous works, will find much to love here. VERDICT An excellent choice for anyone desiring a lighthearted, philosophical, and distinctive literary novel about relationships and finding meaning in the world. Recommended.--Halie Theoharides

      Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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