Eduardo Berti is a real inovative talent, and this enchanting novel ought to be widely read"
PAUL BAILEY Daily Telegraph
"Agua meets expectations in an exquisitely roundabout fashion ... This fantasy by an Argentinian delights in its journey"
"Agua meets expectations in an exquisitely roundabout fashion ... This fantasy by an Argentinian delights in its journey"
ISABEL MONTGOMERY The Guardian
"Like switching on a light switch Agua is as utterly simple as it is warmly illuminating ... haunting quality ... When a character feverishly finds herself abandoning the real world for the one of he dreams' we're swept along, intoxicated with her"
"Like switching on a light switch Agua is as utterly simple as it is warmly illuminating ... haunting quality ... When a character feverishly finds herself abandoning the real world for the one of he dreams' we're swept along, intoxicated with her"
MARY ELIZABETH WILLIAMS New York Book Review
ABOUT THIS BOOK
THE YEAR is 1920, and Luis Agua, an authorised representative of an electricity company, arrives in Vila Natal, an inhospitable village in Portugal. His objective is to convince the inhabitants of the benefits of artificial light. Before long Agua learns that the village and the castle that presides over it hide deep secrets. A noble widow in decline, a will that is both cruel and impertinent, a pioneer of aviation, an epidemic and an unexpected ending; these are the ingredients of this novel in which the themes of love, revenge, humour, death and greed come together to form an almost arithmetic narrative.
ABOUT THIS BOOK
THE YEAR is 1920, and Luis Agua, an authorised representative of an electricity company, arrives in Vila Natal, an inhospitable village in Portugal. His objective is to convince the inhabitants of the benefits of artificial light. Before long Agua learns that the village and the castle that presides over it hide deep secrets. A noble widow in decline, a will that is both cruel and impertinent, a pioneer of aviation, an epidemic and an unexpected ending; these are the ingredients of this novel in which the themes of love, revenge, humour, death and greed come together to form an almost arithmetic narrative.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
EDUARDO BERTI was born in Buenos Aires in 1964. He is the author of a book of short stories entitled Los pajaros for which he received an award from the magazine Cultura and which Pagina/12 newspaper considered among the best works of Argentine fiction in 1994. Agua, his first novel, was unanimously acclaimed both in Argentina and Spain and has already been published in France. His most recent novel, La mujer de Wakefield, was published in Spain in 1999 and nominated for the prestigious Prix Feminina in France.
Afterword by ALBERTO MANGUEL
Translated by ALEXANDER CAMERON
Cover photograph by MAGGIORINO GRAMAGLIA
ISBN 1 901285 42 1 - 160pp
