Antonio Skármeta

A 14-year-old boy grows up in Berlin after his family is exiled from their native Chile.

Itself written as a novelization of a 1983 film (script by the same author), this novel is the basis of the film Il Postino (The Postman), and of an opera of the same name.

A tender book about a simple man and what he learns about poetry, love, politics and life from his friend.

Al salir de la cárcel, un imaginativo joven y un famoso ladrón tienen dificultades para rehacer su vida. El dispar dúo decide que la única salida que les queda es dar el Gran Golpe. Pero en la vida de ambos se cruza la joven Victoria, un talento natural para la danza, hermosa y sensible, asediada sin embargo por el desamparo familiar. Si La chica del trombón es un retrato agridulce de la infancia, El baile de la Victoria es un reflejo de los sueños de la juventud. El autor de El cartero de Neruda vuelve a seducir al lector con esta historia encantadora. Uno de los triángulos de amor y amistad más bellos y emocionantes de la literatura contemporánea.

Bettini struggles with creating a campaign to unite the factions under a common cause, while Nico, searching for his father, a professor imprisoned by the current regime, finds his eyes opening to the realities of Chile and adulthood.

Jacques is a schoolteacher in a small Chilean village, and a French translator for the local paper. He owes his passion for the French language to his Parisian father, Pierre, who, one year before, abruptly returned to France without a word of explanation. Jacques and his mother's sense of abandonment is made more acute by their isolation in this small community where few read or think. While Jacques finds distraction in a crush on his student's older sister, his preoccupation with his father's disappearance continues to haunt him. But there is often more to a story than the torment it causes. This one is about forgiveness and second chances.

Premio Iberoamericano de Narrativa Planeta-Casa de América 2011. Nico ve cómo se llevaban a su padre, el profesor, delante de toda la clase y recuerda que su misión principal es lograr que vuelva. Su enamorada, Patricia Bettini, le acompaña en su soledad y, con un acto imaginativo, lleno de humor, abren el camino a la libertad en un país cercado por la dictadura y el silencio. Una novela de padres e hijos, maestros y discípulos que se las ingenian para devolver los colores y la música a una capital gris. Con la prosa delicada de Antonio Skármeta y la voz de Nico, la novela es una bella historia real de ilusión y esperanza en tiempos difíciles.

"Translation of Chilean author's Match ball, a Lolita-esque story of a middle-aged man's obsession with a teenage tennis star. Told in first person, novel's black humor is set among the European upper classes, with cosmopolitan, especially German and Spanish, cultural references. Competent translation by Tittler. Back-cover notes; no other locating material"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.