Atomizado Berlín

Sep 21, 2024 | nybooks.com | Julia Kornberg |Atomizado Berlín

Reinaldo Arenas dedicated most of his books to telling and retelling his life story. The first time was in his debut novel, Singing from the Well (1967), about his abusive childhood in the rural Cuban province of Holguín. He told it again in The Color of Summer (1982), a loosely autobiographical satire set in Havana’s underground youth circles during the jubilee of a fictional tyrant.

Nov 16, 2023 | nybooks.com | Julia Kornberg |Atomizado Berlín

In “Casa Tomada” (“House Taken Over”), a 1946 short story by the Argentine writer Julio Cortázar, a woman named Irene and her brother live together in an enormous house. As they enter middle age, the spacious rooms surrounding them are the only thing they have: Irene has rejected two marriage proposals, and the brother’s girlfriend has passed away. They are quintessential porteños—Buenos Aires natives, in this case descended from the aristocracy.