Simpatía: A Novel
Description
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE
Rodrigo Blanco Calderón has established himself as one of the great voices of Latin American literature with his debut novel The Night, and his short story collection Sacrifices.
Simpatía is a suspenseful novel with unexpected twists and turns about the agony of Venezuela and the collapse of Chavismo.
Simpatía is set in the Venezuela of Nicolas Maduro amid a mass exodus of the intellectual class who have been leaving their pets behind. Ulises Kan, the protagonist and a movie buff, receives a text message from his wife, Paulina, saying she is leaving the country (and him). Ulises is not heartbroken but liberated by Paulina's departure. Two other events end up disrupting his life even further: the return of Nadine, an unrequited love from the past, and the death of his father-in-law, General Martín Ayala. Thanks to Ayala’s will, Ulises discovers that he has been entrusted with a mission—to transform Los Argonautas, the great family home, into a shelter for abandoned dogs. If he manages to do it in time, he will inherit the luxurious apartment that he had shared with Paulina.
This novel centers on themes of family and orphanhood in order to address the abuse of power by a patrilineage of political figures in Latin America, from Simón Bolívar to Hugo Chávez. The untranslatable title, Simpatía, which means both sympathy and charm, ironically references the qualities these political figures share. In a morally bankrupt society, where all human ties seem to have dissolved, Ulises is like a stray dog picking up scraps of sympathy. Can you really know who you love? What is, in essence, a family? Are abandoned dogs proof of the existence or non-existence of God? Ulises unknowingly embodies these questions, as a pilgrim of affection in a post-love era.
Praise for Simpatía: A Novel
"An unpredictable fable that counters a nation’s hopelessness with the universal need for meaning and connection."—Kirkus
"In the kinetic latest from Blanco Calderón (Sacrifices), a Venezuelan man navigates political and domestic upheaval after the fall of Hugo Chavez. The story kicks off in Caracas when Ulises Kan’s wife leaves him in order to flee the country and escape the repressive Maduro regime. Three months later, after the death of his father-in-law, Martín Ayala, Ulises finds out he’s been tasked by Martín’s will with turning the sprawling Ayala estate into a nonprofit dog rescue. According to the terms of the will, Ulises has four months to make the operation successful. If he does so, the house will be bequeathed to the organization in perpetuity and Ulises will receive an apartment on the estate. Otherwise, the property will go to Martín’s children and the rescue will be forced to shutter. Meanwhile, a woman Ulises had once been enamored with mysteriously reappears, and they begin a passionate love affair. More ominously, Ulises discovers the house is routinely monitored by federal agents and other shadowy figures. The twisty story is chock full of betrayals and intrigue as Ulises faces one hurdle after another in his quest to make good on the inheritance. This page turner has plenty of depth."—Publishers Weekly
"While The Night was dark, Simpatía is tremendously luminous. Even when positing paradoxes or, perhaps, precisely to do so. Ulises: dwell on that name. I read this novel in one sitting. The prose is marvellous and full of beautiful images.” —Karina Sainz Borgo
“In his latest novel, Rodrigo Blanco Calderón continues his investigation, initiated in The Night, into what literature can say about the floundering of Venezuela, this time, through the plight of stray dogs and the love they spur in various orphan characters.” —Jorge Carrión
“Blanco Calderón speaks to us of ‘dogs and men,’ of their struggle for survival, of their pain . . . and of their hope.” —Carmen R. Santos, ABC Cultura
“Simpatía is a new example of the lucidity that can illuminate a lost paradise. Rodrigo Blanco Calderón authors a work equally exquisite in content and form.” —David Jiménez Flores
“The latest novel by the Venezuelan writer Rodrigo Blanco Calderón reestablishes him as one of the most promising contemporary Ibero-American prose writers, and consolidates him as an indisputable figure within the prolific panorama of twenty-first century fiction.” —Letralia
