Longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2024
Three men go out fishing, returning to a favourite spot on the river despite their memories of a terrible accident there years earlier. As a long, sultry day passes, they drink and cook and talk and dance, and try to overcome the ghosts of their past. But they are outsiders, and this intimate, peculiar moment also puts them at odds with the inhabitants of this watery universe, both human and otherwise. The forest presses close, and violence seems inevitable, but can another tragedy be avoided? Rippling across time like the river that runs through it, Selva Almada’s latest novel is the finest expression yet of her compelling style and singular vision of rural Argentina. This masterful novel reveals once again Selva Almada's unique voice and extraordinary sensitivity, allowing its characters to shine and express in action what the depths of their souls harbour.
- One of the Best Books of 2020 in Clarín and La Nación
- Shortlisted for the Mario Vargas Llosa Novel Prize
"Austere yet deeply humane…exhilaratingly accomplished." ―The Times Literary Supplement
"In this potent novella from Argentine writer Almada (Brickmakers), the killing of a stingray sets off a series of fateful events along an unnamed South American river. […] Like a dream, this otherworldly tale lingers in the reader’s mind." ―Publishers Weekly
"Gripped from start to finish." ―Prospect Magazine
"This allusive novel deserves its place on the 2024 International Booker shortlist." ―Irish Times
"Several moments evoke Ernest Hemingway." ―New Statesman
"A virtuoso literary work. […] Flashbacks and side scenes deepen the story which curls and twines like a thrusting tropical vine through the past, roping in sisters, wives, old lovers, boyhood adventures, and jealousies."" ―Annie Proulx , author of THE SHIPPING NEWS
"Told with the hallucinatory atmosphere of a dream, this astonishing, stark novel doesn’t turn away from the hypnotic and disturbing effects of violence. Not a River plunges us straight into the depths of its silences, bracingly so―the longer the quiet goes, the more terrible the rupture."" ―Manuel Muñoz , author of WHAT YOU SEE IN THE DARK
"Selva Almada constructs a lyric of roughness, of few words, a lyric in which the strong, calloused hands of her characters hardly need to be described to make themselves felt. They touch you. "" ―Gabriela Cabezón Cámara , author of THE ADVENTURES OF CHINA IRON
"Whether we are on an island or not, water is displacement, and reading this novel gently carries us through characters and places. " ―Agencia Paco Urondo
"A skillfully crafted novel…Almada skilfully weaves together a vibrant and lyrical narrative." ―Morning Star
"Poignant storytelling about loss and resilience." ―Kirkus
"Selva Almada’s voice has made its own mark on contemporary Argentinean literature, to such an extent that situating her as a writer by referring to the Southern Gothic of authors such as Faulkner, O’Connor or McCullers are superfluous. With Not a River, she establishes her own way of looking at things in order to create literature. " ―Pagina/12
"Almada is not a folkloric writer, but even so, she knows how to capture the idiosyncrasy of a region. Her characters reveal, in their parsimony, a dense inner life, plagued by existential concerns. Perhaps silence and the voices of nature take the place of possible answers. " ―La Nación
"This is a narrative of great depth in which the settings (the river, fishing, the island) emerge from a very powerful poetic narration that keeps quiet more than it says aloud, that omits more than it recounts, a dreamlike voice marked by an infinite and familiar wound anchored in a dialectic between dreams and an indestructible future. " ―El periódico
"In some passages of the novel, Almada seems to whisper what she is recounting rather than saying it out loud: her asymptomatic, almost invisible writing, punctuates the breathing of the sentences to create brief, beautiful images. " ―El Tiempo
"It is worth asking ourselves whether, as has often been said, Selva Almada’s literature has reinvented the rural imaginary of a region of our country, or whether her task is rather to point out the contrasts and contradictions of the dominant culture, in order to indirectly confront it. " ―Revista Otra Parte
"Powerful and elegantly done." ―Tony's Reading List
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Praise for Selva Almada
"I always read Selva Almada with devotion but NOT A RIVER is something else. I had to stand up and read it out loud in my living room. It is that good." ―Samanta Schweblin.
"A major Latin American literary force." ―Shelf Awareness
"Almada is forceful in her depictions of sex, violence, and rage. I feel her prose in my body: a punch in the gut, the sharpness of glass." ―Chicago Review of Books
"There is a tremendous carnality to Almada’s writing, vividly captured in McDermott’s translation" ―LA Review of Books
"Almada combines reportage, fiction, and autobiography to explore femicide in Argentina in her acute, unflinching latest." ―Publishers Weekly, starred review
"An unassuming yet intensely felt narrative. (4 stars)" ―The Arts Desk
"Not an easy book, but it feels like an important one – a work of investigative writing about how easily women’s lives are obscured." ―The Scotsman
"Part journalism, part history, part autobiography, part relentless nightmare." ―Shelf Awareness, starred review
"Almada’s prose is sparse, but the details count. Her ear for dialogue and especially gossip is pitch perfect. Her eye for detail is hawkish." ―LA Review of Books
"A powerful read, shedding a stark light on the horrors of gender violence." ―The Big Issue
