Overview

A mesmerizing read . . . I was completely engrossed in this story, in the shadow each generation casts on the one that comes after it, in the tension between caring for oneself and caring for others. --Avni Doshi, author of the Booker Prize finalist Burnt SugarThrough the vivid interior worlds of two unforgettable characters, Elena Medel brings a half century of the feminist movement to life, revealing how little has really changed for women who work the night shift. Winner of the prestigious Francisco Umbral Prize for Book of the Year and already a sensation in Spain, The Wonders follows Mar�a and Alicia through the streets of Madrid, from job to job and apartment to apartment, as they search for meaning and stability, unknowingly tracing each other's footfalls across time. Mar�a moved to the city in 1969, leaving her daughter with her family but hoping to save enough to take care of her one day. She worked as a housekeeper, a caregiver, a cleaner--somehow always taking care of someone else. Two generations later, during the Women's March in 2018, Alicia was working at the snack shop in the Atocha train station when it overflowed with protesters and strikers. Women, so many women, were flooding the streets with their signs and chants. She couldn't have known Mar�a was among them; she was on the clock. And later, she'd be looking for someone else, a man to take her away for a few hours, to make her forget. Anyone but her husband, with his pleas to go on bike rides together, to have children, to act like the other thirtysomething couples they knew. Medel's lyrical sensibility reveals her roots as a poet, but her fast-paced and expansive storytelling show she's a novelist ahead of her time. With grit, texture, and mesmerizing prose, The Wonders launches an inimitable new voice in fiction.

Full Product Details

9798200880928

Table of Contents

Reviews

Author Information

Elena Medel is an award-winning Spanish poet and the founder of La Bella Versovia, an independent poetry publishing house in Barcelona. Medel was the first woman ever to win the prestigious Francisco Umbral Prize, for her debut novel The Wonders, which was also long-listed for the Finestres Award and has been translated into 12 languages. She published her prize-winning first collection of poetry, My First Bikini, when she was 16 years old. Agust�n Fern�ndez Mallo was born in La Coru�a, Spain in 1967. Before devoting himself full-time to his fiction and poetry, he worked for many years as an experimental physicist. His collected poems were published in Spain in 2012. Thomas Bunstead has translated Enrique Vila-Matas, Aixa de la Cruz, Eduardo Halfon, Yuri Herrera, and Rodrigo Fres�n. His own writing has appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, The Paris Review Daily, and TheIndependent on Sunday. Rebecca Gibel is an award-winning stage, television, and voice actress, who has narrated over fifty audiobooks in a wide variety of genres. She has worked across the country at theaters such as Trinity Rep, Cleveland Play House, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Intiman Theatre, and the Arden Theatre Company. She holds a BA from the College of William & Mary and an MFA in Acting from Brown University/Trinity Rep.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available