In 2011, Mr. Watanabe, a Japanese electronics executive, is in Tokyo when the earthquake that precedes the Fukushima nuclear disaster strikes. In the aftermath, he fins himself on a journey to Fukushima, a tourist of the current day tragedy that mimics his own experiences of World War II.
For Mr Watanabe is one of the few double hibakusha, a survivor of the atomic bombs dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The earthquake shifts his and others memories of those events. Meanwhile, four women based in Paris, New York, Buenos Aires, and Madrid tell their own stories of knowing and loving Mr Watanabe, a victim of one of the largest collective traumas of the last century.
A sweeping novel written with intimacy and compassion, Fracture encompasses some of the most urgent political, social and environmental questions of contemporary life, about collective trauma, memory and love. Already a sensation in Spain, it is major work of imagination from the prize-winning and highly acclaimed Argentinian author.
Genre: Literary Fiction
For Mr Watanabe is one of the few double hibakusha, a survivor of the atomic bombs dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The earthquake shifts his and others memories of those events. Meanwhile, four women based in Paris, New York, Buenos Aires, and Madrid tell their own stories of knowing and loving Mr Watanabe, a victim of one of the largest collective traumas of the last century.
A sweeping novel written with intimacy and compassion, Fracture encompasses some of the most urgent political, social and environmental questions of contemporary life, about collective trauma, memory and love. Already a sensation in Spain, it is major work of imagination from the prize-winning and highly acclaimed Argentinian author.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"Traversing languages and cultures, decades and generations, Fracture unites its many fragments to form a powerful and redemptive vision of a single, and unbroken, human life. A searching, humane, and vital novel." - Eleanor Catton
"It is impossible to classify Andrés Neuman: each of his books is a new language adventure, guided by the intelligence and the pleasure of words. He never ceases to surprise us and is, doubtlessly, one of the most daring writers in Latin American literature, willing to change, challenge and explore, always with a unique elegance." - Mariana Enríquez
"Andrés Neuman is a born storyteller. Fracture is a deeply generous, wise and resonant novel that glides effortlessly between the intimate and the global, the tragic and the comic, all underpinned by Neuman’s electric, ludic intelligence. If you are about to turn the first page, you are very lucky - a reader on the threshold of a book that in the most wonderful of ways will enrich and enlarge your life." - Owen Sheers
"Fracture is adventurous, big-hearted and seductive, and it has an appetite for life that is, to me, the trademark of great fiction. Neuman is as generous here as ever." - Juan Gabriel Vásquez
"Neuman's striking novel weaves a tapestry of life and society since Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed, as told through the story of the wanderer and electronics executive Mr. Watanabe, the legacy of his childhood trauma, and the women around the globe who loved him. Rich in detail, political as well as personal, from the foibles of language to economic decline, the world the characters inhabit is constantly shifting underfoot, and the act of remembering emerges as a shore on which to stand and face the sands of time. A finely wrought, beautifully translated novel." - Saskia Vogel
"One of the things I love about Andrés Neuman's work is how he restores writing as the most powerful source of knowledge. Fracture, this dazzling and devastating novel, is a terrific demonstration of that." - Alejandro Zambra
"It is impossible to classify Andrés Neuman: each of his books is a new language adventure, guided by the intelligence and the pleasure of words. He never ceases to surprise us and is, doubtlessly, one of the most daring writers in Latin American literature, willing to change, challenge and explore, always with a unique elegance." - Mariana Enríquez
"Andrés Neuman is a born storyteller. Fracture is a deeply generous, wise and resonant novel that glides effortlessly between the intimate and the global, the tragic and the comic, all underpinned by Neuman’s electric, ludic intelligence. If you are about to turn the first page, you are very lucky - a reader on the threshold of a book that in the most wonderful of ways will enrich and enlarge your life." - Owen Sheers
"Fracture is adventurous, big-hearted and seductive, and it has an appetite for life that is, to me, the trademark of great fiction. Neuman is as generous here as ever." - Juan Gabriel Vásquez
"Neuman's striking novel weaves a tapestry of life and society since Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed, as told through the story of the wanderer and electronics executive Mr. Watanabe, the legacy of his childhood trauma, and the women around the globe who loved him. Rich in detail, political as well as personal, from the foibles of language to economic decline, the world the characters inhabit is constantly shifting underfoot, and the act of remembering emerges as a shore on which to stand and face the sands of time. A finely wrought, beautifully translated novel." - Saskia Vogel
"One of the things I love about Andrés Neuman's work is how he restores writing as the most powerful source of knowledge. Fracture, this dazzling and devastating novel, is a terrific demonstration of that." - Alejandro Zambra
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