Selva Almada
© Vale Fiorini

Selva Almada

Argentina | 1973
Considered as one of the most powerful voices in Argentinian literature and one of the most promising ones in Latin American fiction.
keep reading

Published by

Latin America and Spain Literatura Random House, Lumen, Mardulce Editora / France Métailié / Netherlands Meulenhoff, Uitgeverij Vleugels / Brazil Todavía Livros / Germany Berenberg / Sweden Tranan / USA Graywolf Press / UK Charco Press / Italy Rizzoli, Polidoro / Japan Shorai-Sha / Turkey Verita / Indonesia Labirin Buku / Greece Klidarithmos / Norway Camino Forlag / Portugal Dom Quixote

Compared to Carson McCullers, William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor, Selva Almada is considered one of the most powerful writers of contemporary Argentinian and Latin American Literature.

 

She has been finalist of the Rodolfo Walsh Award (Spain) with her nonfiction work Chicas muertas (2014) and finalist of the Tigre Juan Award (Spain) with her novel Ladrilleros. Her first novel, El viento que arrasa, won the Edinburgh International Book Festival’s 2019 First Book Award.

She is on the long-list for the International Booker Prize 2024 for her novel No es un río (Not A River).

Her work has been translated into French, English, Italian, Portuguese, German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Turkish…

She is one of the directors of Salvaje Federal, a bookshop specialized in literature written and published in Argentina.

Almada is a major Latin American Literary force. Shelf Awareness

In her realism of magical repercussions, Onetti and the Borges of El Sur come together with the inflamed shadow of Horacio Quiroga, but the quality and resolve of her prose produce a power of suggestion that is unique to Selva Almada.  Francisco Solano, El País, Spain

What seems fantastical soon turns hyperrealistic, a bit like in the stories of Rulfo or Sara Gallardo. Oliverio Coelho, La Nación, Argentina

Original and full of novelty, Selva Almada has seduced with a style which is both poetic and realistic. Her literature raises your hair without reaching the full sting of horror. Cristian Alarcón, Babelia El País, Spain

It is literature of the provinces, like that of Carson McCullers, for example. Regional in contrast with global cultures, but not a fiction of manners. Just the opposite of much urban fiction, which is literature of manners without being regional. Beatriz Sarlo, Diario Perfil

Selva Almada reinvents the imaginative rural world of a country (…) She is an author gifted with very uncommon power and sensitivity. Rolling Stone Magazine

A literary language of enormous elegance and precision. Soledad Platero, El País, Uruguay

As it has already been said somewhere else, she is not only a promise of Argentinian literature but a genius of Hispanic American fiction. La tormenta en un vaso, Blog

One of the great renovators of the Spanish American novel. El Cultural

Selva Almada’s books are always linked by some sort of haunting rage. Your throat dries quickly. It’s impossible to abandon the story, to take your eyes off the page. Impossible to leave (…) Salomé Kiner, Le Temps, France

Almada recreates the experience of the people of the provinces with extreme precision. She discovers their rules and reproduces their language, seeking not only the sonority of their words but also the complexity of their meanings. Martín Lojo, ADN, Argentina

Selva Almada is one of the fundamental storytellers of the 21st century. Cine y literatura Magazine

Almada particularly excels at depicting her characters’ fragility and vulnerability. Publisher’s Weekly

Works

Children’s Literature

Other books by the same author

El mono en el remolino. Notes about the fiming of the movie ‘Zama’ by Lucrecia Martel, 2017
El viento que arrasa. Novel, 2012
Una chica de provincia. Short stories, 2007
Niños. Short stories, 2005
Mal de muñecas. Poems, 2003