Thank you so much @andotherpics for sending The Remainder to read and review - despite some confusing sections, I loved this one and it’s definitely a favourite out of the International Man Booker long-list for me!
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It’s Alia Trabucco Zerán’s debut novel and I will certainly be keeping my eyes peeled for her future works, especially if they’re also going to be translated by Sophie Hughes. They complement each other so well, with Hughes mirroring the rhythmic tone Zerán was intending in the Spanish. She did such an amazing job with the chapters narrated by Felipe, as they’re four or five pages long and all one sentence and she captures his intensity perfectly!
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There’s also a lot to be said for her translation of Iquela’s chapters, as Iquela is a translator herself and often muses on the untranslatability of her work, how certain Spanish words have other nuances in different parts of South America - translating those into English must have taken so much effort! Zerán is also quite playful with language from what I gather from the translation, and again that must have been a challenge for Hughes but she rose to the occasion with aplomb! (I love that phrase.)
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In terms of plot, it’s quite loose in that three children of militant parents who fought against the Pinochet dictatorship come together as adults (around 23-25 I’d say), still under the shadow of their parents actions and consequences. When Paloma’s mother dies in Germany, Paloma comes back to Chile with the hope of having her mother buried in her home country, but the volcanic ash cloud over Chile forces the plane with her mother’s coffin in it to be cancelled. The trio head across country in a rented hearse in an attempt to repatriate Paloma’s body - it sounds weird but honestly I thought it was compelling!
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It’s interspersed with a lot of scenes from the trio’s childhood, often dark and quite disturbing, which tallies with Felipe’s bizarre present-day notion of counting dead bodies... I’m gonna stop here because I feel like I’m doing a terrible job of explaining it 😂
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Overall I thought it was an incredible translation and a compelling debut!