Bonsai

'The "last truly great book" I read has to be Alejandro Zambra's Bonsai. A subtle, eerie, ultimately wrenching account of failed young love in Chile among the kind of smartypant set who pillow-talk about the importance of Proust.... A total knockout.' - Junot Diaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao 'Every beat and pattern of being alive becomes revelatory and bright when narrated by Alejandro Zambra. He is a modern wonder.' - Rivka Galchen, author of Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch 'Rather than shrink in its conversion to bound covers, as most manuscripts do, Zambra's text has swelled-and its effect on the world of Chilean literature has been entirely disproportionate to its size.' - Marcela Valdes, The Nation 'The most talked-about writer to come out of Chile since Bolano.' - New York Times 'Strikingly original.' - James Wood, New Yorker 'There's a dreamy associative quality of the novella that made it feel true and beautiful and moving. I left Bonsai feeling a little melancholic ache in my ribs, as though some crucial part of me had been taken away.' - New York Times 'Bonsai fulfills one of the requirements of the short novel: the search for perfection [...] supremely, effectively ambiguous.' - J.A. Masoliver Rodenas, La Vanguardia 'When I read Zambra I feel like someone's shooting fireworks inside my head.' - Valeria Luiselli, author of Lost Children Archive 'Not a single word is wasted in this powerful, elegantly told story, which traces through a few episodes in the lives of Julio and Emilia, two young people who fall for one another at university-bonding over their love of literature and discussion-then retreat from one another's lives.' - Literary Hub

Alejandro Zambra is the author of the novels Chilean Poet, Multiple Choice, Ways of Going Home, The Private Lives of Trees, and Bonsai; the short story collection, My Documents, a finalist for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award; and Not to Read, a collection of essays. The recipient of numerous literary prizes, as well as a Cullman Center fellowship, his stories have appeared in the New Yorker, the Paris Review, The White Review and Harper's, among others. He lives in Mexico City.