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“One of the debut novels that most stood out this year in Latin America.” —New York Times
The story is that of a family that no longer exists, of a childhood destroyed, of a home invaded by two foreigners.
Natalia García Freire is our first writer from Ecuador. Barely thirty, This World Does Not Belong to Us is her debut novel and was selected by the New York Times as one of the best Spanish-language books of 2019.
Featured on Latin American Literature Today
OneWorld will publish This World Does Not Belong to Us in the UK and British Commonwealth, and the acquisition was large enough to be featured in The Bookseller
Narrated by a young man who returns to his family home after years away to find it is now dilapidated and owned by two strangers who arrived, out of the blue, when Lucas was still a child. The return is a long conversation with his dead father, a reproach, an invocation, a plea. His mother was sent away long ago and in the garden she loved so much now only weeds grow.
The tightly coiled narrative alternates between chapters recalling his traumatic childhood and the present. Lucas’ youthful naivety is vividly contrasted with the more sinister—and by the end fairly unhinged—voice of the adult man.
An incredibly atmospheric, almost surreal novel, suffused with a strong sense of foreboding and unsettling eeriness that builds to an almost unbearable point.
García Freire commented: “I write for my loved ones who are not with me anymore. This World Does Not Belong to Us was an attempt to reach them through words, through fiction, through insects and earth.”
