Still Born: Guadalupe Nettel

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The novel confronts an array of delicate themes concerning motherhood: the pressures, burdens and expectations and their perpetual impacts, in addition to the complications caused in relationships post-birth. A profound novel about motherhood, friendship, and the power of community from “one of the leading lights in contemporary Latin American literature” (Valeria Luiselli, author of Lost Children Archive). Guadalupe Nettel (born 1973) is a Mexican writer. She was born in Mexico City and obtained a PhD in linguistics from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. She has published in several genres, both fiction and non-fiction.

Adina does want to have children. She was having trouble conceiving. She was willing to start vitro fertilization. How long did it take to write Still Born, and what does your writing process look like? Do you type or write in longhand? Are there multiple drafts or sudden bursts of activity? Is the plot and structure intricately mapped out in advance? Since 2017, she has directed the Magazine of the University of Mexico. [10] Bibliography [ edit ] Novels

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Nettel is known for her psychologically complex characters. Discuss the protagonist’s emotional journey and the ways in which she navigates her internal struggles in the novel. GN: In Mexico, 11 girls and women are murdered every day, many out of hatred. This is not just something that we just read about in newspapers, very often it’s a friend’s friend or sibling that has been murdered by her partner and many times these guys are not imprisoned or even put on trial. This impunity gives rise to more crimes and even to a normalisation of it. In Still Born, Guadalupe Nettel renders with great veracity life as it is encountered in the everyday, taking us to the heart of the only things that really matter: life, death and our relationships with others. All of these are contained in the experience of motherhood, which this novel explores and deepens.’

Nettel is also adept in illustrating those fragments of beauty that arise from appalling situations, such as strength in adversity, the beauty of unexpected love and the tenacity of human emotion. GN: Well, at that time I certainly didn’t know what was going to happen in the US in 2022. I couldn’t imagine how fragile the preservation of rights we have already achieved is. But I had in mind many other forms of violence: psychological, physical, political, economic; obvious and subtle, that women suffer every day. I did like the book's occasional moments of widening its focus to include all the women of Mexico. Alina, waiting for prenatal screening at a private medical clinic, looks across the vastness of D.F., where most women don't have access to any kind of perinatal care. Perhaps it's a Westerner's preference, but I would have liked a book more firmly rooted in its locality: Laura and Alina are Mexicans but feel very European, they met in France and have French friends, vote in French elections and read European authors... they are part of the global expat "semi-elite," who have come home to roost. They don't appear to have any particular money worries. These mentions of a wider epidemic of violence against women and scarcity of resources on their doorstep were welcome context. I wondered how a poor Alina would cope, with no possibility of hiring a nanny.

Senior Lecturer, English and American Studies, & Director of the Centre for New Writing, University of Manchester E’ davvero instillato nelle figlie femmine da piccole secondo un programma stabilito a preservare la razza umana? Whale provides an unflinching look at two contrasting portraits of national identity in the era of Korean modernisation – equally valid, yet highly oppositional. A word of warning before we start: I found this book slightly difficult to review without revealing important elements of the plot, so let me be loud and clear – SPOILERS AHEAD! Guadalupe Nettel (born 1973) is a Mexican writer. She has published four novels, including The Body Where I Was Born (2011) and After the Winter (2014). She won the Premio de Narrativa Breve Ribera del Duero and the Premio Herralde literary awards. She has been a contributor to Granta, The White Review, El País, The New York Times, La Repubblica and La Stampa. Her works have been translated to 17 languages. [4] She is the editor of the Revista de la Universidad de México, the oldest cultural magazine in Mexico.

Birns, Nicholas (2013). The contemporary Spanish-American novel: Bolaño and after (Firsted.). New York: Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 9781441140395. OCLC 853287118. Una cosa è sicura: ogni figlio è palesemente una tempesta di emozioni e bisogna combattere il tabù che ci vieta di nominare l’odio e la delusione ma quello che molti non colgono è l’insegnamento che c’è dietro ad ogni figlio.

Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel, translated by Rosalind Harvey

Still Born embraces both the joys of motherhood, and all the milked-up gunk, guilt-tripping and agonising. The decisions made are never straightforward. But this novel is vital in its emphasis on the right for people to make their own choices about their own bodies.’