Ema the Captive
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Ema The Captive, César Aira’s second novel, is perhaps closest in style to his popular An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter and The Hare
In nineteenth-century Argentina, Ema, a delicate woman of indeterminate origins, is captured by soldiers and taken, along with with her newborn babe, to live as a concubine in a crude fort on the very edges of civilization. The trip is appalling (deprivations and rapes prevail along the way), yet the real story commences once Ema arrives at the fort, where she takes on a succession of lovers among the soldiers and Indians, leading to a brave and grand entrepreneurial experiment. As is usual with Aira’s work, the wonder of the book is in the details of customs, beauty, and language, and the curious, perplexing reality of human nature.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Chris Andrews s adept translation of this early Aira (The Musical Brain) novel exhibits the cunning brilliance of one of Latin America s most critically acclaimed authors. In 19th-century Argentina, Ema is transported to a frontier fort as a government prisoner. Later, during an attack on the fort, native tribesmen abduct Ema. She then spends years roaming indigenous kingdoms as a captive and a concubine. The story of Ema s adaptability and perseverance evolves into an exploration of conflicts between human development and nature. The book succeeds in its rich, often tangential descriptions of Ema s odyssey. Aira gradually widens the scope of the narrative through drifting storms of thought. At times philosophical, he relates distant settings and dire situations with astute observations on humanity. Although this is one of Aira s more conventional novels, the book still demonstrates his playful and spontaneous style. Characters are often introduced and not given a name or description until much later, tones can shift dramatically in a single page, and the sense that anything could happen is present in every paragraph. The result is a substantive novel that moves quickly and often feels improvisational. This unpredictability aids the narrative by mirroring the instability in Ema s life as she navigates an environment plagued by violence. Never tedious, always thoughtful, Aira s prose moves with great agility and effortless depth.
