Santa María del Circo
Mario Vargas Llosa : Talking about The weight of Living on Earth (“I think David Toscana has written one of the best novels in Spanish language”.
José Manuel Fajardo: “David Toscana is one of the major voices of the current Latin American narrative”, EL Cultural, El Español, 15 enero 2023
“David Toscana is one of the most innovative contemporary Mexican storytellers.” Eduardo Espina, El Observador.
A corrosive critique of prejudice, the canon of beauty and society as a decadent circus.
David Toscana won Mario Vargas Llosa V Biennial Novel Prize, 2023
CANDAYA, 2023, 288 p. LITERARY FICTION, Spanish (Mexico)
ALFAGUARA, 1998, Mexico.
A dispute between two brothers, owners of a circus that tours the deserts of northern Mexico, leads to a separation: each of them, with a handful of performers, takes a different path. The story takes us behind Don Alejo and those who, hopelessly, follow him: Hercules, Barbarela, Fléxor, Mandrake, Balo, Narcissa, Mágala and the dwarf Natanael,
they enter a drift that leads to an abandoned village where they finally decide to stay, to leave the the circus life and build their own society, a sort of cemetery for circus performers, which they christen Santa María del Circo.
With clear Onettian echoes and a lacerating humour, the characters in this novel soon discover that they are not the only ones in the town.
Toscana’s novel soon discover that the desire for normality that motivated them ends up leading them to the recreation of a monster: a society that reflects the decadence and meaninglessness of the contemporary world.
Santa María del Circo, the second novel by the Mexican author, recent winner of the V Vargas Llosa Biennial Prize, was originally published in 1998, and is now 25 years old.
WHAT HAS BEEN SAID ABOUT THE AUTHOR’S WORK
“Una obra que en España emparentaría de modo claro con el mejor Luis Landero, puesto que se sustenta en un mismo aliento o eje: el hiato entre realidad e irrealidad y el afán de los hombres por no resignarse a lo que son sin haber, al menos, intentado probar la suerte de lo que podrían ser; en suma: la redención en la búsqueda de lo imposible.” Ernesto Calabuig, El Cultural, El Mundo.
“El humor, y en específico el negro, en las novelas de Toscana es legendario (…) logra unir la gran tradición de la picaresca en español con el universo metafísico de otro checo, Franz Kafka, para imponer un nuevo adjetivo atmosférico a la literatura mexicana: toscaniano o toscanesco.” Juan José de Ávila, El Confabulario, El Universal.
Original Title
Santa María del Circo
Rights sold :
Portuguese (Casa da Palavra 2006 / Oficina do Livro 2010), English US (St. Martin’s Press 2001),
Audiobook in Spanish and Portuguese (Penguin Random House Audio)
Audiovisual adaptation : Brazilian movie by Guilherme Weber (Deserto)
8 CLAVES SOBRE SANTA MARÍA DEL CIRCO
Territory of representation
World Wide
More about the rights available for this book
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