The protagonist and the woman get to spend some time alone in this fourth chapter. 4. I expected her gaze to be lowered, expectant or fearful, but when I turned towards the woman I saw her eyes fixed on me, with a fiery expression of reproach. She opened her lips to...
This third chapter of Levrero’s novel only carries the protagonist further away from where he wants to be. (Chapters one and two are here and here.) 3. When I opened my eyes I realised that the sun had already risen. I observed my travelling companions. The...
This is my translation of the first two chapters of Mario Levrero’s novel The City. The protagonist lives in a perverse universe where nothing he does produces the outcome he expects and his choices keep leading him further and further from home. By his own...
They were happiest on holiday. It might sound obvious – who isn’t happiest in their free time? For them, though, holidays served a more complex need than leisure. On holiday, she came into focus, and he remembered her. Andrew turned the lens, looking at the...
He made friends quickly, but he lost them too, often with much bitterness. It wasn’t that he was a narcissist, good only for first impressions. But he seemed to hold out the promise of something more than friendship, hold it out inadvertently. They expected...
