Canción by Eduardo Halfon

 

Although my Spanish used to be more than decent - read it B1 to B2 in terms of officially certified languages - for years already, I didn´t dare to read literature in this language as I was definitely lacking that local, native touch of the language. As improving some of my languages and perfecting others was one of my objectives for this year - and we are almost half through it - I tried my best to keep track of my promises. With once the week full immersion into Spanish language - thanks to my lovely friend M., my knowledge of native nuances and subtleties improved considerably, hence my audacity of reading this month not only one, but three books in Spanish - covering various geographical areas of the language.

My first ever book read in original Spanish to be reviewed on the blog is a book I wanted to read for a long time: Canción by Guatemalan author Eduardo Halfon. The book was recently longlisted for Dublin Literary Award - but haven´t made it to the shortlist. 

A short partly auto-fictional work, the book exposes the multi-layered identity and the treachery of memory. An author from Guatemala is invited in Japan to take part to a colloquia of Lebanese writers. His Lebanese part of identity is shared through his grandfather who was actually born at a time when Lebanon and Syria was one, as a Jew. The same grandfather who, as Halfon´s grandfather as well in 1967, was abducted by a faction involed in the Guatemalan civil war. One of his captors was called Canción.

As in my previous Spanish-written book I´ve reviewed a couple of days ago - read in translation thou - I am very much interested in auto-fiction set in the modern world, where personal destinies are notwithstanding with global or regional events. We cannot escape history and historical events do leave a trace even on the most recluse individual destinies. It leaves so much freedom of choice for the writer as you can combine individual destinies with way too many political events in infinite ways, but we may also realize that at the personal, real-life level, it really leaves us with a high-range of inter-personal stories.

Canción will for sure remain in my literary history as my first ever novel in Spanish read fully in the original, but my excitement for this personal achievement put aside, it´s a really intriguing book and I am looking forward to read more by Halfon, in Spanish as well.

Rating: 4.5 stars