Fate - by Jorge Consiglio (Paperback)

About the Book

A musician, a taxidermist, and a scientist all attempt to exert control over their intersecting fates.

Book Synopsis

This novel focuses on a group of characters who are all in different ways endeavouring to take control of their fate. Their desire to lead a genuine existence forces them to confront difficult decisions, and to break out of comfortable routines.Karl and Marina have been together for ten years and have a young son, Simón. Karl is a German-born oboist at Argentina's national orchestra, and Marina is a meteorologist. On a field trip, she meets fellow researcher Zárate, and what might have been just a fling starts to erode the foundations of her marriage. Then there is Amer, a dynamic and successful taxidermist. At a group therapy session for smokers, Amer falls for the younger Clara. While the relationship between Karl and Marina disintegrates, the love story between Amer and Clara is just beginning - or is it already at an end? One of Argentina's leading contemporary writers, Jorge Consiglio portrays the inner worlds of these characters through the minute details of their everyday lives, laying bare their strivings and their frustrations with a wry gaze, and seeking in this close-up texture a deeper truth.

Review Quotes

"A moving testament to the beauty and banality of human relationships." --Publishers Weekly

"A masterpiece that refuses to stay still." --Culture Trip

"Fate could be likened to a pointillist painting by Seurat, with each dab of colour and each descriptive passage contributing to what is finally a beautifully structured and brilliantly shimmering whole." --New York Magazine (The Strategist UK)

"In the realm of fiction, an author has total authority over their characters, and they can inject interactions with meaning and pattern-play in a way therapists warn us not to in our day to day lives. It takes a particular level of craftsmanship to do this at the level of the sentence, with the effortlessness that Consiglio seamlessly achieves, and to sweep a reader so tenderly into the progress." --White Review

"A muted and unhurried novel that insists on the validity of the imperfect present." --Kirkus

"The beauty of this novel...is that it provides no answers, but many questions. It can be reflected upon, re-read, and reconsidered." --BookBlast

"The language of Fate has teeth and claws." --Books and Bao

"Fate is a rich tapestry of language, a sharp depiction of the vagaries of fate and a thoughtful meditation on the human condition." --The Monthly Booking

"Consiglio's writing aches with poetry through its attention and complexity." --The Skinny

"Packed full of sensuality and written in fresh, candid prose." --The Quietus

Praise for Jorge Consiglio

"Employing a language that is sharp, concise and visceral, it proves his talent as a natural storyteller and as a social chronicler and poet of some refinement." --Morning Star

"There is a timeless quality to Consiglio's prose...a storyteller of rare ingenuity." --Splice

"His stories are told with dispassionate realism while being varnished with a surrealist gloss, creating his own in-between style...Occasional poetic turns reminiscent of Pablo Neruda erupt within the narrative." --Culture Trip

"[Consiglio] carves out a singular space by focusing on characters who do not quite have a place of their own." --Full Stop

About the Author

Jorge Consiglio was born in Buenos Aires in 1962. He has published several novels including: El bien (The Good, 2003; Award for Emerging Writers, Opera Prima, Spain), Gramática de la sombra (Grammar of the Shadows, 2007; Third Municipal Prize for Novels), Pequeñas intenciones (Small Intentions, 2011; Second National Prize for Novels, First Municipal Prize for Novels, re-published in 2019), Hospital Posadas (2015), Tres Monedas (2018), published by Charco as Fate (2020) and Sodio (2021), forthcoming from Charco as Sodium . They have all been awarded prizes in Argentina and in Spain. He has also published three collections of short stories, including Villa del Parque (2016), published by Charco Press as Southerly (2018), five books of poems and a book of essays.

Originally from Buenos Aires and now based in Edinburgh, Carolina Orloff is an experienced translator and researcher in Latin American literature. In 2016, Carolina co-founded Charco Press, where she acts as Publishing Director and Chief Editor. She is also the co-translator of Ariana Harwicz's novels Die, My Love, Feebleminded and Tender, and of Jorge Consiglio's Fate .

Fionn Petch is a Scottish-born translator working from Spanish, Italian and French into English. He lived in Mexico City for 12 years, where he completed a PhD in Philosophy at the UNAM. His translations of Latin American literature for Charco Press have been widely acclaimed. Fireflies by Luis Sagasti was shortlisted for the Translators' Association First Translation Award 2018. The Distance Between Us by Renato Cisneros received an English PEN Award in 2018. A Musical Offering, also by Luis Sagasti, was shortlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize 2021 and won the Society of Authors Premio Valle Inclán 2021 for best translation from Spanish. He now lives in Berlin.