Tarantula

An extraordinary book. What begins as a shocking story reveals itself as a sidelong, mysterious meditation on trauma, vengeance and the terrible capacity of the past to shape the present – Olivia LaingThis novel about a violent and traumatic childhood episode is eerily current – the questions it raises about identity, resistance and history are both deeply personal and universal – Mariana EnriquezChilling. A story set in the Guatemalan jungle that resonates in Gaza, in Donbas, anywhere victims end up resembling their own executioners – Santiago RoncaglioloAmong [Halfon’s] preoccupations are the legacy of violence and mass murder in Europe and Latin America; the frequency and facility with which the past intrudes upon the present; the quixotic effort to separate family myth from historical fact; and the ways in which pleasure consoles us * New York Review of Books (USA) *This taut, magisterial novel explores the possibility of disentangling one’s trauma and one’s roots * Le Monde des Livres (France) *Virtuoso… [An] exploration of memory, of the power of imagination, of Jewish and Guatemalan identity, and of the transmission of a family or collective history * Florilettres (France) *

Eduardo Halfon (Author)

Eduardo Halfon is one of the great global writers of his generation. He is the author of fifteen novels examining questions of identity, memory and history as a Jewish man, as a Guatemalan, as a descendant of European and Middle Eastern refugees, including The Polish Boxer, Mourning and Canción. He has received international literary awards including the Prix Médicis Étranger, the Prix Roger Caillois and the Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger in France, the Premio de la Crítica and the Premio José María de Pereda in Spain, the Edward Lewis Wallant Award and the International Latino Book Award in the US, and the National Prize in Literature of Guatemala, his country’s highest literary honour. Eduardo Halfon was named one of the thirty-nine most promising young Latin American writers by the Hay Festival in Bogotá and is a Fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation. His work has been translated into sixteen languages. Tarantula is his latest novel.

Daniel Hahn (Translator)

Daniel Hahn is a writer, editor and literary translator. He translates from Portuguese, Spanish and French and has translated literature from Europe, Africa and the Americas, including the work of José Eduardo Agualusa, Philippe Claudel, María Dueñas, Eduardo Halfon, José Luís Peixoto, José Saramago and Gonçalo M. Tavares. His translations have won literary awards including the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award, and been shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize and the LA Times Book Award. He is also the author of several works of non-fiction, including The Tower Menagerie and the forthcoming If This Be Magic, and the award-winning children’s picture-book Happiness is a Watermelon on Your Head, and is co-editor of ‘The Ultimate Book Guide’ series. He reviews for publications including the Guardian, Spectator and Prospect, and is former Chair of the Translators Association and the Society of Authors and former National Programme Director of the British Centre for Literary Translation.