CHILEAN POET: A NOVEL

A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEARnA WALL STREET JOURNAL TOP 10 BOOK OF THE YEARnONE OF NPRu2019S u201cBOOKS WE LOVEu201dnnu201cA tender and funny story about love, family and the peculiar position of being a stepparentu2026[Chilean Poet]broadens the authoru2019s scope and quite likely his international reputation.u201d u2014Los Angeles Timesnnu201cZambra [is] one of the most brilliant Latin American writers of his generation.u201d u2014The New York Review of Books nnu201cZambra's books have long shown him to be a writer who, at the sentence level, is in a world all his own.u201d u2014Juan Vidal, NPR.orgnnA writer of u201cstartling talentu201d (The New York Times Book Review), Alejandro Zambra returns with his most substantial work yet: a story of fathers and sons, ambition and failure, and what it means to make a familynnAfter a chance encounter at a Santiago nightclub, aspiring poet Gonzalo reunites with his first love, Carla. Though their desire for each other is still intact, much has changed: among other things, Carla now has a six-year-old son, Vicente. Soon the three form a happy sort-of familyu2014a stepfamily, though no such word exists in their language.n nEventually, their ambitions pull the lovers in different directionsu2014in Gonzalou2019s case, all the way to New York. Though Gonzalo takes his books when he goes, still, Vicente inherits his ex-stepfatheru2019s love of poetry. When, at eighteen, Vicente meets Pru, an American journalist literally and figuratively lost in Santiago, he encourages her to write about Chilean poetsu2014not the famous, dead kind, your Nerudas or Mistrals or Bolaños, but rather the living, striving, everyday ones. Pruu2019s research leads her into this eccentric communityu2014another kind of family, dysfunctional but ultimately loving. Will it also lead Vicente and Gonzalo back to each other?n nIn Chilean Poet, Alejandro Zambra chronicles with enormous tenderness and insight the small momentsu2014sexy, absurd, painful, sweet, profoundu2014that make up our personal histories. Exploring how we choose our families and how we betray them, and what it means to be a man in relationshipsu2014a partner, father, stepfather, teacher, lover, writer, and friendu2014it is a bold and brilliant new work by one of the most important writers of our time.