Federico Falco – författare

"Jag anlade ett trädgårdsland för att fylla tomheten. Den breda, tomma tiden. Tiden utan handling, utan historier. Slättlandets tid." Det börjar i januari. I ett litet hus på den argentinska landsbygden, en bit bortom Buenos Aires och den förlorade kärleken – Ciro. Det är in i den självvalda ensamheten som vår hjälte, en författare, flyr för att undkomma sig själv och det som varit. Med den tuffa slätten omkring sig – den grymma landsbygden som inte automatiskt kan ge någon tröst, en natur som hävdar sig, som inte går att bekämpa – försöker han att anlägga ett trädgårdsland och finna en väg tillbaka. Tiden som obönhörligt bara pågår. Ansträngningarna och ledan. Insekterna, grisarna och rovfåglarna. Oljuden och tystnaden. De fallande löven, torkan och de översvämmade fälten. Långsamt, genom idogt arbete i landet – genom omvårdnaden om grödorna och landskapet, genom det inre arbetet och den yttre mänskliga värmen – uppstår läkandet och lusten att skriva kommer tillbaka. Men denna bok handlar inte bara om en slätt, eller om ett uppbrott. Utan om två. Det är utifrån två horisonter som Federico Falco redogör för sina tillkortakommanden och tryggheter – barndomens och läkandets slätter, släkten och pojkvännen Ciro som aldrig kommer tillbaka. Han tar oss tillbaka till den italienska släkten, som han älskar men aldrig kunnat vara hel inför, som han aldrig kunnat visa sin kärlek till män inför. Slättland är en berättelse om tystnad och sökande. Men också om vänskap och frigörelse. Det är den första av Federico Falcos böcker som ges ut på svenska. Vackert översatt av Djordje Zarkovic.

After a loss, a year in the country: four seasons to transform a garden and a self.'In the city the notion of the hours of the day, of the passage of time, is lost. In the countryside that is impossible,' our narrator tells us. In this remote house and garden, time is almost palpable; it goes by without haste and brings into sharp relief even the tiniest details: insects, the sound of the rain, a falling leaf, the smell of damp earth. Past and present are equally weighted and visible here, revealing themselves slowly with every season and turn of the spade.So a year unfolds. A garden takes shape as his connection deepens to this place, becoming a shelter from everyone and everything, perhaps even from himself. We see the ants devouring the chard, we hear the tales his grandmother told, perhaps real, perhaps taken from a movie, and we learn about his great love, Ciro. The humid sheets in the country, the carefully renovated apartment in the city and the painful, inexplicable break-up that prompted him to take refuge in this patch of now-carefully tended land.

After a loss, a year in the country: four seasons to transform a garden and a self.'In the city the notion of the hours of the day, of the passage of time, is lost. In the countryside that is impossible,' our narrator tells us. In this remote house and garden, time is almost palpable; it goes by without haste and brings into sharp relief even the tiniest details: insects, the sound of the rain, a falling leaf, the smell of damp earth. Past and present are equally weighted and visible here, revealing themselves slowly with every season and turn of the spade.So a year unfolds. A garden takes shape as his connection deepens to this place, becoming a shelter from everyone and everything, perhaps even from himself. We see the ants devouring the chard, we hear the tales his grandmother told, perhaps real, perhaps taken from a movie, and we learn about his great love, Ciro. The humid sheets in the country, the carefully renovated apartment in the city and the painful, inexplicable break-up that prompted him to take refuge in this patch of now-carefully tended land.

"His stories shimmer like revelations – the clarity, mystery, beauty, depth, and sheer, thrilling peculiarity of ordinary life when the veil lifts. They’re exhilarating to read, just as exhilarating to re-read." —Deborah EisenbergChildhood does not last long in the Argentine mountains of Córdoba, and adult lives fall apart quickly. In disarming, darkly humorous stories, Federico Falco explores themes of obsessive love, romantic attachment and the strategies we must find to cope with death and painful longing.In the middle of a blizzard a widow watches the ruin of her late-husband’s garden, until suddenly she sees a woman running naked in the falling snow. After telling her parents she is abandoning her Christian faith, a girl becomes infatuated with a Mormon missionary who reminds her of a boy killed in her village years before. When his family’s home is lost, a father desperately offers his daughter’s hand in marriage to anyone who will take them in. And a town’s mayor tries to fulfill his father’s dying wish – to design the perfect cemetery.

"His stories shimmer like revelations – the clarity, mystery, beauty, depth, and sheer, thrilling peculiarity of ordinary life when the veil lifts. They’re exhilarating to read, just as exhilarating to re-read." —Deborah EisenbergChildhood does not last long in the Argentine mountains of Córdoba, and adult lives fall apart quickly. In disarming, darkly humorous stories, Federico Falco explores themes of obsessive love, romantic attachment and the strategies we must find to cope with death and painful longing.In the middle of a blizzard a widow watches the ruin of her late-husband’s garden, until suddenly she sees a woman running naked in the falling snow. After telling her parents she is abandoning her Christian faith, a girl becomes infatuated with a Mormon missionary who reminds her of a boy killed in her village years before. When his family’s home is lost, a father desperately offers his daughter’s hand in marriage to anyone who will take them in. And a town’s mayor tries to fulfill his father’s dying wish – to design the perfect cemetery.

Cielos de Córdoba es una novela de iniciación, la de Tino, un preadolescente solitario con una madre gravemente enferma internada en un hospital y un padre obsesionado por los ovnis que regenta un museo dedicado a la ufología. Entre esas figuras ausentes se mueve el protagonista de esta historia, obligado por la vida a madurar y asumir responsabilidades antes de tiempo, mientras trata de lidiar con el caos y las pulsiones del deseo propias de su edad. Federico Falco nos adentra en un pequeño cosmos poblado de personajes incompletos que se mueven entre la incomunicación y la incertidumbre. Haciendo gala de un lenguaje ajustado y una prosa minimalista, nos lleva de lo lírico a lo descarnado sin apenas transición, con una aparente fluidez. Esta nouvelle, una historia de tránsito entre la infancia y la adolescencia, ese territorio en el que se aúnan la ternura y el dolor, confirmó a su autor como uno de los mayores valores, no solo de su generación, sino de las letras argentinas actuales.