There are writers who begin to practice as such from an early age. In case of Luis SepĂșlveda it was that of the boy in whose circumstances writing served as a necessary channel of expression. Born of a love affair repudiated by his maternal grandparents, as soon as this author had the use of reason, he knew that his thing was the social demand, the protest against any type of political abuse or of the powers that be.
Under these basic brushstrokes of SepĂșlveda's personality, it is easy to understand that SepĂșlveda's youth, marked by the Chilean mega-earthquake of 1960 and by the Pinochet political earthquake since 1973, always found spaces for vindication and for the literary creation more committed to the circumstances of your country.
His worldwide recognition as a writer would not reach the age of forty, once his imaginary narrator worked from early youth, he was also filled with experiences of all kinds that raised his narrative to the altars of that literature that condenses the art of good writing and the story of so many experiences in one place and another in the world, in prison with Pinochet or in American exile first and later in Europe.
Thus, read Sepulveda It has the double value of a job earned with absolute solvency from the first stories of youth and of an awareness-raising, mobilizing intention. Novels that narrate very different ways of life, that pose old existential dilemmas and that do not forget the intense desires and drives that end up moving the human being.
Top 3 recommended novels by Luis SepĂșlveda
The shadow of what we were
Defeat marks. It is a fatalism whereby God or whoever the hell it is makes sure that the losers appear stigmatized as a race with no signs of a solution. The sensation that Carlos, Lolo and Lucho offer is that of being marked by that irreconcilable destiny in which all hope ends up being forged in nostalgia for what could not be done.
But humans do not know resignation, they should not know it if they intend to maintain their human condition. The three aforementioned friends are gathered to assault the glory that was always denied them as idealists capable of transforming cruel reality. But cruelty can use the grotesque and ridicule to destroy any plan.
The long-awaited leader of the three friends, Pedro Nolasco, cannot attend the meeting after suffering a ridiculous fatal accident. And yet this is not the time for surrender. Carlos, Lolo and Lucho, beheaded by their leading comrade. If the revolution did not work at the time, when they were young and organized in a Chile infested by the dictatorship, perhaps it is time now, many years later, to improvise a plan towards a symbol of the revolution that will finally give them back a piece. of glory with which to reconcile with their existence as eternal losers ...
An old man who read love novels
Many of Luis SepĂșlveda's titles awaken that sense of inevitable decadence with a slight tinge of hope. The simple idea of ââthe old man reading love stories awakens us the idea of ââthe impossible, of the deadline to love, of memories ... This novel with which Luis SepĂșlveda made a great literary leap tells us about Antonio JosĂ© Bolivar, a character centered on one of the author's travels to the indigenous people of the Shuar between the borders of Ecuador and Peru, where the Amazon begins to trace a spirited channel that generates jungle life.
There lies the town of El Idilio, a bucolic name that separates the human from civilization and subjects him to the essence of the most exuberant life. Antonio José ends up reading love novels that a local doctor presents to him. But while reading, Antonio does not lose sight of the outsiders who believe they can integrate into nature as new dominant gods, without understanding that nothing that surrounds them ends up being subjected to arms or to human pride.
Diary of a sentimental killer and Yacaré
These two short novels are two rarities in the author's extensive bibliography. These are two detective plots, written as if Luis SepĂșlveda had dedicated himself all day to writing crime novels. Its original output was produced by delivery in some newspapers back in the 90s. Its meeting in this book was a mandatory task for so many readers of the Chilean genius.
The first novel focuses on a hit man subjected to the storms of the most powerful love, capable of making him lose the north; the second, less black in the purest sense, invites us to enjoy a plot with an ecological vocation almost above the strictly police theme.
In any case, both novels are read in an agile way and with that disturbing rhythm that sprinkles every construction with a noir vocation. Very interesting to discover another facet of the writer and with which the noir genre in general gained a special contribution from one of the greats of our days.
Other recommended books by Luis SepĂșlvedaâŠ
Chile Hotel
Barely two years after the death of the Chilean writer Luis SepĂșlveda, this volume immerses us in his most intimate life, presided over by family and friends. It also allows us to see the profile of him who is the most traveled and committed, in particular with politics and the environment. Accompanied by the wonderful photographs of Daniel Mordzinski, his words make him vividly present to us, while taking us to remote places in Tierra del Fuego and other places where SepĂșlveda not only found unforgettable stories, but also made friends that time never turned off Throughout his tireless journey, from the small Hotel Chile where he was born or Pinochet's prisons, through Brazil or Ecuador, to Hamburg, the seas around the world and, finally, GijĂłn, what was Luis SepĂșlveda pursuing? A better world, a place to feel at home?
