A FUNNY DIRTY LITTLE WAR

Soriano, Osvaldo; Caistor, Nick (translator)

ISBN 10: 0930523180 / ISBN 13: 9780930523183

Editore: Readers International, 1986

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108pp. trade paperback, upper corner tips creased on the cover, paper has turned light brown, Novel of a political confrontation in a small village in Argentina, translated from the Spanish,

Codice articolo w110210529

Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: A FUNNY DIRTY LITTLE WAR
• Editore: Readers International
• Data di pubblicazione: 1986
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0930523180
• ISBN 13: 9780930523183
• Rilegatura: Soft Cover
• Condizione: Good +
• Cataloghi dei venditori:
  • South America
  • Literature
  • Fiction

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

Conflict between rival factions in a small Argentinean village results in violence

Informazioni sugli autori

OSVALDO SORIANO (1943-1997) was an important Argentinian journalist and novelist. He joined the news daily La Opinión when it was founded in 1971 by Jacobo Timerman. During Soriano's days as a staff writer, there were various clampdowns on political opinion, and after six months when none of his articles had been accepted, he began writing a story in which a character named Osvaldo Soriano reconstructs the life of the English actor Stan Laurel. This work became his first novel, Triste, solitario y final (Sad, Lonely and Final, 1973) a parody on cinematic themes set in Los Angeles with the fictional detective Philip Marlowe as his joint investigator. Raymond Chandler's famous hard-boiled writing style -- which Soriano studied and translated -- plus his love of movies helped Soriano develop his own writing style, learning dialogue, how to pace a story, and slapstick humour from the big screen. La Opinión became a prominent government critic and revealed the growing horrors of the Dirty War. Jacobo Timerman and other staff members began to be abducted, and after March 1976, when the Argentinian military seized power, Soriano made his way to Belgium, where he met his wife Catherine, and then to Paris, where he lived in exile until 1984. While in France he became a friend of another Argentinian exile Julio Cortázar, with whom he founded a short-lived monthly magazine Sin censura. After the fall of the military junta in 1983, Osvaldo Soriano returned to Buenos Aires. His novels written in exile began to be published inside Argentina -- selling over 100,000 copies apiece in a country where 1500 copies puts a book on the best-seller list. His journalism written after his return, mostly for the new publication Pagina 12 was seen as important in helping his fellow Argentinians recover a sense of decency and pride as the country struggled to emerge from its recent bloody past.

NICK CAISTOR is a British journalist and translator who has worked for the BBC Latin American Service, for Index on Censorship magazine and for other London-based international organisations. After graduate studies in French and Spanish, including an M.A. in Spanish language and literature from London University, he lived for two years in Argentina, and he has continued travelling extensively in the region. He edited The Faber Book of Latin American Short Stories. In 1984 his highly acclaimed translation of To Bury Our Fathers from Readers International introduced Sergio Ramírez to English-language audiences for the first time, and his translation of Ramírez' Stories also was published by Readers International (1987). In 1986 his translation of Osvaldo Soriano's A Funny Dirty Little War from Readers International introduced this acclaimed writer -- the best-selling writer in Argentina at the time -- to English-language audiences. Winter Quarters, the sequel to A Funny Dirty Little War, was translated by Nick Caistor and published by Readers International in 1990. Nick Caistor's other translations include a second novel Castigo Divino by Sergio Ramírez, poems by Claribel Alegría and other El Salvadorean and Nicaraguan poets, stories by Julio Cortázar and Haroldo Conti and the novel The Shipyard by Uruguayan Juan Carlos Onetti.