The Private Lives of TreesThe Private Lives of Trees
Title rated 3.3 out of 5 stars, based on 14 ratings(14 ratings)
Book, 2010
Current format, Book, 2010, 1st ed, No Longer Available.Book, 2010
Current format, Book, 2010, 1st ed, No Longer Available. Offered in 0 more formatsWorried that his wife Veronica will not return home from an art class, Julian imagines his stepdaughter Daniela's future without her mother and tells her an improvisional bedtime story.
<div><p>"Zambra is indeed the herald of a new wave of Chilean fiction."—Marcela Valdes, <i>The Nation</i></p><p><i>The Private Lives of Trees</i> tells the story of a single night: a young professor of literature named Julián is reading to his step-daughter Daniela and nervously waiting for his wife Verónica to return from her art class. Each night, Julián has been improvising a story about trees to tell Daniela before she goes to sleep, and each Sunday he works on a novel about a man tending to his bonsai, but something about this night is different. As Julián becomes increasing concerned that Verónica won't return, he reflects on their life together in minute detail, and imagines what Daniela—at twenty, at twenty-five, at thirty years old, without a mother—will think of his novel.</p><p>Perhaps even more daring and dizzying than Zambra's magical Bonsai, <i>The Private Lives of Trees</i> demands to be read in a single sitting, and it casts a spell that will bring you back to it again and again.</p><p><b>Alejandro Zambra</b> was named as one of <i>Granta</i>'s "Best Young Spanish-language Novelists." He is the author of three novels, including <i>Bonsai</i>, which was made into a film, and <i>Ways of Going Home.</i></p><p><b>Megan McDowell</b> received her Master's Degree in Literary Translation from the University of Texas at Dallas. In addition to two books by Alejandro Zambra, she has translated <i>Under This Terrible Sun</i> by Carlos Busqued and <i>La Vida Doble</i> by Arturo Fontaine.</p></div>
<div>Set over a single night, Zambra's second novel will end when the protagonist's wife returns home, or is gone forever.</div>
<div><p>"Zambra is indeed the herald of a new wave of Chilean fiction."—Marcela Valdes, <i>The Nation</i></p><p><i>The Private Lives of Trees</i> tells the story of a single night: a young professor of literature named Julián is reading to his step-daughter Daniela and nervously waiting for his wife Verónica to return from her art class. Each night, Julián has been improvising a story about trees to tell Daniela before she goes to sleep, and each Sunday he works on a novel about a man tending to his bonsai, but something about this night is different. As Julián becomes increasing concerned that Verónica won't return, he reflects on their life together in minute detail, and imagines what Daniela—at twenty, at twenty-five, at thirty years old, without a mother—will think of his novel.</p><p>Perhaps even more daring and dizzying than Zambra's magical Bonsai, <i>The Private Lives of Trees</i> demands to be read in a single sitting, and it casts a spell that will bring you back to it again and again.</p><p><b>Alejandro Zambra</b> was named as one of <i>Granta</i>'s "Best Young Spanish-language Novelists." He is the author of three novels, including <i>Bonsai</i>, which was made into a film, and <i>Ways of Going Home.</i></p><p><b>Megan McDowell</b> received her Master's Degree in Literary Translation from the University of Texas at Dallas. In addition to two books by Alejandro Zambra, she has translated <i>Under This Terrible Sun</i> by Carlos Busqued and <i>La Vida Doble</i> by Arturo Fontaine.</p></div>
<div>Set over a single night, Zambra's second novel will end when the protagonist's wife returns home, or is gone forever.</div>
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- Rochester, NY : Open Letter, 2010.
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