At the start of Levrero’s novel The City his protagonist leaves the house to buy groceries and, lost in the rain, flags down a truck. The next two chapters carry him further and further away from his original intention. (The first two chapters are here.) 3. When...
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...
