Not a River: A Novel [Paperback]

* SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE *

Its not a river, itsthisriver.

A hot, motionless afternoon. Enero and El Negro are fishing with Tilo, their dead friends teenage son. After hours of struggling with a hooked stingray, Enero aims his revolver into the water and shoots it. They hang the rays enormous corpse from a tree at their campsite and let it go to rot, drawing the attention of some local islanders and igniting a long-simmering fury toward outsiders and their carelessness. Its only the two sistersthe teenage nieces of one of the locals, Aguirrewith their hair black as cowbird feathers and giving off the scent of green grass, who are curious about the trio and invite them to a dance. But the girls are not quite as they seem. As night approaches and tensions rise, Enero and El Negro return to the charged memories of their friend who years ago drowned in this same river.

As uneasy and saturated as a prophetic dream,Not a Riveris another extraordinary novel by Selva Almada about masculinity, guilt, and irrepressible desire, written in a style that is spare and timeless.

Selva Almadais the author ofBrickmakers,Dead Girls, andThe Wind That Lays Waste. She is considered one of the most potent literary voices in Argentina and Latin America.

Annie McDermottis the translator of a dozen books from Spanish and Portuguese. She was awarded the Premio Valle Incl?n and her translation ofBrickmakersby Selva Almada was shortlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation.

In this potent novella from Argentine writer Almada (Brickmakers), the killing of a stingray sets off a series of fateful events along an unnamed South American river. . . . Like a dream, this otherworldly tale lingers in the readers mind.Publishers Weekly

A virtuoso literary work. . . . Flashbacks and side scenes deepen the story whiclÃN