People in the Room
Shortlisted for the 2019 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation
Norah Lange author Charlotte Whittle translator
Format:Paperback
Publisher:And Other Stories
Published:9th Aug '18
Should be back in stock very soon
First translation into English of classic author An influential literary figure in early 20th century Argentina and friend of Borges, Neruda and Garcia Lorca This eerie and thrilling story will appeal to fans of Woolf, Borges, Leonora Carrington and more modern writers such as Fleur Jaeggy and Samantha Schweblin
A young woman spies three women in the house opposite. She imagines them as criminals, as troubled spinsters, or as players in an affair. Lange's hallucinatory images make this uncanny exploration of desire, domestic space, voyeurism and female isolation a twentieth century masterpiece, here translated into English for the first time.A young woman in Buenos Aires spies three women in the house opposite her family's home. Intrigued, she begins to watch them. She imagines them as accomplices to an unknown crime, as troubled spinsters contemplating suicide, or as players in an affair with dark and mysterious consequences. Lange's imaginative excesses and almost hallucinatory images make this uncanny exploration of desire, domestic space, voyeurism and female isolation a twentieth-century masterpiece. Too long viewed as Borges's muse, Lange is today recognised in the Spanish-speaking world as a great writer and is here translated into English for the first time, to be read alongside Virginia Woolf, Clarice Lispector and Marguerite Duras.
`Deathly scenes from a wax museum come to life, in a closed, feminine world.' Cesar Aira`Lange breaks the canon that was suffocating women writers at the beginning of the twentieth century.' Delfina Muschietti`Only the dominant machismo of her era meant that Norah Lange was usually noted more for her Norwegian beauty than for her stature as a great writer. In People in the Room, Lange's intensity and clarity are reminiscent of Virginia Woolf's finest moments in Mrs Dalloway.' El Cultural `Hallucinatory and unsettling, the prose vibrates like a high-tension wire . . . the brilliance of the language, and the shifting perspectives transform what at first seems banal into something mesmerising and tragic . . . a picture of suffocating isolation and voyeurism, Hitchcock without a murder.' Lee Langley, The Spectator `A beautiful and mesmerizing modernist experiment . . . The writing is crisp and direct, in stark contrast to the intricate psychological darkness the narrator inhabits, and it leaves the reader questioning every detail. Unsettling and masterful, this novel should entice fans of literary giants like Virginia Woolf and Clarice Lispector.' Kirkus Reviews `Intimate and vital ... this is an exquisite novel, full of light, shadows, and profound revelations.' Samanta Schweblin, author of Fever Dream `With her singular, powerful voice and her radical turnings of the screw of detective fiction, Lange joins a wave of classic women writers including Clarice Lispector and Leonora Carrington whose rediscovery has altered the terrain of Latin American literature.' Carlos Labbe, author of Loquela `People in the Room brings to mind the alluring uncertainty of Shirley Jackson's Hangsaman, the imaginative intensity of adolescence transformed into masterful fiction.' Idra Novey, author of Ways to Disappear `Female experience in all its isolate weirdness as narrated by a voyeuristic woman with a sensuous sensibility. I want to trust this woman but I don't, which makes People in the Room all the scarier.' Christine Schutt
ISBN: 9781911508229
Dimensions: 198mm x 129mm x 12mm
Weight: 190g
208 pages