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The Children

ebook / ISBN-13: 9780857055859

Price: £14.99

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Hardcover

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One day, as she enters her local supermarket, Laura Romero has a startling encounter with a beggar, who seems to offer her a child. A short while later, in the middle of the night, she discovers a mysterious young boy on the pavement outside her apartment building: Fidel, who is six years old, a child with seemingly no origins or meaning. With few clues to guide her as she tries to discover his real identity, Laura finds herself swept into a bureaucratic maelstrom of fantastical proportions. From the National Institute for the Welfare of Families to the Hearth & Home Centre, from imagined worlds to lost loves, The Children explores the limits of isolation and intimacy, motherhood, neglect and compassion, filtered through the lives of two lonely people, whose coming together is less for company and more to share their loneliness.

A tender, intelligent novel from a startling and brilliant new voice in English translation.

Translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor

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Reviews

Disturbing and original, exploring the limits of identity and isolation
Juan Carlos Morales, RNE
A profoundly original novel, displaying the influence of Freud and Dickens
José Luis Ibáñez Ridao, Onda Cero
An unusual novel, with uncommon relationships, characters and structures, blending humour with terror.
periodistadigital.com
An excellent writer; one of the best in Colombia
Evelio Rosero, author of THE ARMIES