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    Paradises
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    Paradises
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    Paradises
    Ebook312 pages5 hours

    Paradises

    By Iosi Havilio

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Paradises are trees that abound in Buenos Aires, the fruits of which are known as poison beads. This is what the novel is about: the many kinds of paradise and the poisons that inhabit them.' Iosi Havilio Paradises might be a reimagining of Camus' Outsider - but in female form and living in 21st-century Buenos Aires. Our narrator allows the hazards of death and chance encounters to lead her through the city, where she sleepwalks into a job in the zoo's reptile house, and another administering morphine to one of the oddball residents of the squat that she and her young son move into. Is this life in the shadows, an underworld of cut-price Christmases, drugs and dealers, or is this simply life? And why do snakes seem to be invading every aspect of it? Paradises returns to the enigmatic female characters of Havilio's first novel, Open Door - and has already been highly praised by Beatriz Sarlo, perhaps the most influential critic in his native Argentina. Thoughtful, yet unafraid of squalor or the perils of insecurity, this is a voice for right now, obliquely critical, grimly comic.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAnd Other Stories
    Release dateOct 1, 2013
    ISBN9781908276254
    Unavailable
    Paradises
    Author

    Iosi Havilio

    Iosi Havilio (b. 1974 Buenos Aires) became a cult author in Argentina after his debut novel Open Door was highly praised by the outspoken and influential writer Rodolfo Fogwill and by influential Argentine critic, Beatriz Sarlo. Petite Fleur is his fifth novel.

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    Reviews for Paradises

    3.5/5

    8 ratings1 review

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    • 4/5
      This novel is set mainly in modern day Buenos Aires, narrated by a woman who has moved there from a small town after her husband has died and left her and her young son destitute. She finds lodging at a rooming house, where she is befriended by a Romanian immigrant who helps her land a job at a local zoo. She subsequently moves into a nearby abandoned building, which houses a community of squatters that is headed by a woman dying of cancer, who relies on the new resident to give her intravenous injections of morphine to relieve her pain. The narrator integrates herself into the settlement and its shady characters, while maintaining close relationships with her Romanian friend and a running buddy from her old neighborhood, who has moved in with a wealthy drug addict nearby. All three women and those around them are lonely, desperate people, bored with life and in search of temporary pleasure, in order to mask their anxieties and fears. The narrator frequently abandons her rambunctious son, as danger exists within and outside of the squatter settlement and whenever she meets up with her old friend.Paradises was a pleasant and well written but not particularly memorable read, with characters who live on the edge of society. I didn't find them or the story to be particularly unique or enlightening, as people like these can be found in any major city in the world, but I liked this book enough that I would be willing to try other books by this author.