Still Born: Guadalupe Nettel

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She has published in several genres, both fiction and non-fiction. Her collection of short stories El matrimonio de los peces rojos won the Premio Internacional de Narrativa Breve Ribera del Duero [6] and has since been translated into English under the title Natural Histories. She won the Premio Herralde in 2014 for her novel Después del invierno ( After the Winter).

Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel | Goodreads Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel | Goodreads

Guadalupe Nettel ci immerge in questa atmosfera di desiderio e di attesa, dolore e speranza, allargando lo sguardo e poi stringendolo su un personaggio o un particolare. Riflettendo e lasciando spazi aperti alla riflessione individuale. When Laura moves into her apartment, she comes across a pigeon nest in her balcony. Throughout the novel the progress of the pigeons family mirrors the events happening in the book: nesting, birth acceptance, tragedy, disappearance, return. I thought this was fantastic metaphor for child birth and motherhood.She has published three English-language works of fiction with Seven Stories Press: Natural Histories (2014), [8] The Body Where I was Born (2015)., [9] and Bezoar And Other Unsettling Stories (2020). The Body Where I Was Born was recognized on the Three Percent Best Translated Book Longlist and as a Neustadt International Prize for Literature Finalist. It’s intricately detailed, deeply felt, compelling and ultimately surprising portraits of young women….so realistic, that their stories become ours. Solitude, the vulnerabilities of the body, unearthing the beautiful in the strange, outsiders who are unwilling to conform – these are some of [Nettel’s] interests ... [and she] carries some of these concerns into Still Born.... The prose, which appears in an elegant translation by Rosalind Harvey, retains a matter-of-factness, and in some places a synoptic quality ... that is rarely freighted with sadness or despair.’

Guadalupe Nettel’s Searing New Novel Asks: What Makes a Guadalupe Nettel’s Searing New Novel Asks: What Makes a

Es una novela que habla de temas que la sociedad no habla, considerados temas tabú, una historia que aunque no sea un tema que me llame mucho pero considero necesario para todos (tanto mujeres como hombres, por supuesto), quizá para ser más empáticos, tanto con mujeres que quieren ser madres como con las que no… La maternidad es más compleja de cómo la vemos en las películas. Hay tantas cosas detrás que no conocemos ni entendemos. Y este libro me enseñó mucho sobre el deseo de ser madre y a su vez, el deseo de no serlo. Several writers including Sheila Heti ( Motherhood) and Elena Ferrante ( The Lost Daughter) have written exceptionally well about motherhood. Usually, though, writers are overly sentimental and their narratives seem unreal. Thankfully, this book is honest and real with characters behaving in a rational and realistic manner. But this is more than a commentary on contemporary motherhood with Nettel bringing up questions of female choice and freedom in society and presenting women’s struggles both at an intimate level and within Mexican society. Un genitore si nutre di piccole e grandi ricompense emotive ed ogni giorno si rigioca tutto e come un lancio di dadi.

RF: Were you trying to break the stereotypical view of motherhood by presenting it as biological and non-biological, individual and collective? GN: I think it’s impossible for your biography not to permeate your fiction . I chose Laura as the narrator because I didn’t want to speak about myself in the book. Laura is different from me in many aspects: she’s more extreme, more radical and she has decided not to have children. But I also share some things with her: she’s a scholar, which, in a way, is similar to being a writer, she has a complicated relationship with her own mother and she is interested in Buddhism … Part of my story also permeates the story of Doris and Nicolás. I’m not a widow, I’m more like a divorced woman who restarted her life, but I know what it is like to live in a violent relationship with someone with whom you have children. I know the terror in which a woman like that can live, and how long it takes to heal after. Guadalupe Nettel was born in Mexico City and spent part of her childhood in the south of France. From a young age, she suffered from eye problems due to a congenital condition in one of her eyes, probably Peters' syndrome. She was consequently a victim of bullying, a fact that, according to Nettel, was one of the reasons that led her to take refuge in books and start writing. [5] She obtained a PhD in linguistics from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. Her work has been translated to more than 17 languages. She is a contributor to various magazines and publications including as Granta, El País, The New York Times, La Repubblica and La Stampa. She is the editor of the Revista de la Universidad de México of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).