Restauration
- Auteur: Ave Barrera (Mexico)
- Soort boek: Mexicaanse roman
- Origineel: Restauración (2019)
- Engelse vertaling: Ellen Jones, Robin Myers
- Uitgever: Charco Press
- Verschijnt: 26 augustus 2025
- Omvang: 258 pagina’s
- Uitgave: paperback / ebook
- Prijs: £ 11,99
- Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Libris
Ave Barrera Restauration review en recensie
- “Perhaps the most terrifying novels of all are those that give us a clear and authentic reflection of ourselves.” (Letras Libres)
- “Ave Barrera carries out a meticulous architectural construction in which each element serves to support the others, using words with the care that a good craftsperson dedicates to the tools and materials necessary for a restoration.” (La Marea)
- “As with today’s feminist struggles, our central character looks at the connection between past and present violence.” (El Economista)
- “Barrera delves into the inadequacies, indulgence and regrets that accompany both women of today and the past: love as a construct and sometimes as a kind of sect that demands sacrifices from its most naive members.” (Marvin)
Flaptekst van de roman van de Mexicaanse schijfster Ave Barrera
Propelled by female desire, shaped by the violence of the male gaze, and inspired by the endless vitality of old stories remade anew, Restoration takes on Bluebeard, Salvador Elizondo, Juan Rulfo, Angela Carter, Octavio Paz, Mariana Enriquez, and Amparo Dávila to produce a novel of obsession, reclamation, and romance gone very, very wrong.
Jasmina has been hired by her maybe-boyfriend to restore his family home, a grubby, abandoned time capsule where a great artist once lived. As she moves from room to room – scrubbing, scraping, plastering over cracks – the stories inhabiting them awaken, and the lives of the women who came before her begin to overlap with her own. Who is the woman in the photograph? And what secrets linger in that last locked room?
Restoration is a ghost story with porous borders, between Jasmina and these forgotten women, between the novel and us. And the questions Barrera asks may be about what’s behind our own barred door.
Ave Barrera was born in 1980 in Guadalajara, Mexico. She is a writer and editor. Her first novel, Puertas demasiado pequeñas (2016) won the Sergio Galindo Award and was published by Charco Press under the title The Forgery (2022). Her second novel, Restoration, won the 2018 Lipp Prize. Ave has also published short stories and essays in anthologies and electronic media. Since 2019 she coordinates the Vindictas Collection for the National University of Mexico. In 2023 she received a grant from the Kislak Foundation for a writing residency at the University of Florida, USA. Her new novel is Notas desde el interior de la ballena.