Still Born: Guadalupe Nettel

Product Information

Her work has been translated into more than fifteen languages and has appeared in publications such as Granta, The White Review, El País, the New York Times, La Repubblica and La Stampa. A little bit of booze and a couple of friends were all that were needed to transform any evening into a party. It presents the many ways in which we mother and are mothered, and proclaims none as being the only or right way. The reflection on women’s condition that is present in the book came in a very natural and organic way. It tackles themes of birth, family, friendship, responsibility and vulnerability and is sensitively written but also unflinching.

Still Born - Kindle edition by Nettel, Guadalupe, Harvey Still Born - Kindle edition by Nettel, Guadalupe, Harvey

But “Still Born” sees that the decision to “have” or “not have” children in one’s life is not nearly so linear. Instead, Laura serves as witness and interpreter, establishing a buffer between the reader and the book’s harrowing events. With a twisty, enveloping plot, the novel poses some of the knottiest questions about freedom, disability, and dependence – all in language so blunt it burns. Alina and Laura are old friends whose relationship is based on eschewing procreation as the be all and end all.She is the editor of the Revista de la Universidad de México of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Gospodinov’s Time Shelter has the power to take our mind to times and places, uncertain that we will find our way back. There is rare propulsion to the plot (for literary fiction) that arises not from any strained special effect but from our investment in the characters and its evocation of the ordinary yet life-altering choices they –and we – must make.

‘Still Born,’ by Guadalupe Nettel, complicates the idea of

Death – the thirteenth arcana, which in many tarot decks does not even have a name – is a card that doesn’t always mean an actual passing, but brings with it a profound, radical change. Sin duda una historia que deberían de leer muchos para comprender la importancia de un embarazo deseado y las implicaciones que conlleva. Heart-gripping, real, and hugely thought-provoking, I find myself still staring into space trying to absorb the unexpected emotional whirlwinds that fall upon these women. With the sharpness of an Ivorian coupé-décalé song, GauZ’ offers evocative glimpses into the life of African migrants in France, from the first generation who could set up their own businesses to the later wave, most of whom have been denied legal immigrant status. Still Born traces the lives of Laura and Alina, best friends with a shared aversion to “the human shackles” of motherhood.She has published four novels, including The Body Where I Was Born (2011) and After the Winter (2014). Standing Heavy offers a refreshing and often caustic take on the cultural and economic consequences of an encounter between western consumerism and capitalism and the acute African sense of observation and derision. When asked if there was one specific moment in the book that stood out and stuck in their minds, our judges said it was the final page: ‘There are some scraps of dialogue, and Alina utters a very ordinary phrase, a cliché. GN: I believe that for years no one talked about this because people knew that if we had this debate, if the moral and social dimensions of maternity were questioned and arguments against maternity were heeded to as well as the unfair ways in which nurturing can unfold, many women would have chosen not to reproduce, as is the case in many countries nowadays. When we see the pain, the injustice, the violence that women constantly suffer, an urge to stop it awakes in us, and that is when we become feminists.