In this novel . . . man and nature coexist on every page, but the relationship is fathoms-deep and the indifference of the natural world strikes the loudest chord. There is no heavy-handed philosophising here, just gentle meditations and some wonderful writing . . . Special praise goes to Jon Lindsay Miles for his splendid translation. * Geographical Magazine * Southeaster is a meandering, estuarine version of a road novel, a watery Hemingway-meets-Camus tale of a loner exposed to the elements and in wordless search for some kind of purpose ... sensuous and meticulously observed ... a luminous and troubling South American classic. * Financial Times * Haroldo Conti was one of the great Argentinian writers. -- Gabriel Garcķa Mįrquez Haroldo is a river, a delta with many streams that embrace the islands as they pass. His literature is directed at the solitude of others, and it brings a warm embrace, in the same way the river does. -- Eduardo Galeano The economy of his writing, impregnated with poetry and tenderness, is remarkable . . . Dont be fooled by the storys initial, quasi-bucolic, calm. A dramatic crescendo leads to the final roar. -- Marķa Esther de Miguel * La Nación * Haroldo Conti was one of Argentina's finest prose writers at the time he was disappeared by the military junta in the mid 1970s. He was fifty-one years old. This first publication of his work in English introduces us not only to one of South America's finest twentieth-century writers but to a world view, a landscape and a unique literary vision that is essential to our time. -- John Burnside What a surprise and a treat. I was swept up in the great murky flow of it. Conti is a writer for whom place is character, not backdrop, and what a place, what a character. Hes a revelation. -- Tim Winton 'Readers in English can at last immerse themselves in the subtle, beautifully wrought journey of the voyager . . . Southeaster is one of the most original contributions to what Conti himself would term, in an interview in 1974, a stylistically and imaginatively Argentine literature. -- University of Professor John King (School of Comparative American Studies Warwick) Contis work occurs at the point where landscape and human psychology meet and theres a soulfulness to his writing that I find deeply touching and nourishing. One of the best books published this year. -- Foyle's Staff Picks Southeaster is a meandering, estuarine version of a road novel, a watery Hemingway-meets-Camus tale of a loner exposed to the elements and in wordless search for some kind of purpose . . . sensuous and meticulously observed . . . a luminous and troubling South American classic. -- Melissa Harrison * Financial Times * With his plain but indefatigably inventive descriptions, Conti conveys how the river always changes . . . In long winding sentences full of alternately subordinating clauses, Conti slackens the narrative to match the rivers pace . . . but Conti also knows how to make time buckle, and the last fifty pages . . . are exhilarating. -- Sophie Hughes * Times Literary Supplement * Southeaster is a particularly rich evocation of interiority . . . organising a chaos of memories, observations, thoughts, and feelings into meaningfulness. -- Jessica Sequeira * Boston Review * Despite the obvious romance of the delta, of Contis strange, distorting setting, this is not a novel which romanticises the lives of those who live in it. It leaves the reader with a savage beauty to contemplate, something contradictory, tense, and ultimately self-destructive in a way that seems to correspond with so much of Argentinas recent history. * 3am Magazine * Contis frequent change of tense and the rhythm of his translated prose echo the ever-changing nature of the water itself . . . a beautifully written story. * We Love This Book * The description of the waters and their changing moods elevate the river to a character in its own right. * Workshy Fop *
