Rutas Argentinas
Carlos Bernatek
2000, Adriana Hidalgo
240 pages
IT’S NOT EXACTLY new, but Carlos Bernatek’s ironic exploration of identities that go beyond geographical boundaries is definitely worth taking a look at. Rutas argentinas won the Premio Planeta in 1998 and creates a fictional village on the Argentine plains, Danel, whose inhabitants spend much of their time dreaming of escape. The bleak landscape is distinguished by a strange human topography: the legless prostitute who pines for the beaches of the Brazil, the undertaker whose hobby is taxidermy… This is a very Argentine novel written in a colloquial that will be challenging for many readers, but is definitely worth persevering with. – EC
