Iosi Havilio
Open Door
When her partner disappears, a young veterinary assistant drifts from the city towards Open Door, a small town in the Pampas named after its psychiatric hospital. Embarking on a new life in the country, she finds herself living with an ageing ranch-hand and courted by an official investigating her partner’s disappearance. She might settle down, although a local girl is also irresistible . . .
This evocative, atmospheric book makes a quiet case for the possibility of finding contentment in unexpected places – and tells it in unexpected ways.
Read an ExcerptMore Info
- With an introduction by Oscar Guardiola-Rivera
- Open Door was read in the And Other Stories Spanish-language Reading Group summer 2010, after being suggested in the previous reading cycle by Paula Porroni.
- Iosi Havilio’s intriguing interview in Latineos (in English).
- If you subscribed to And Other Stories before before this book went to the printers, you would have received one of the limited number stamped, early copies of Open Door and up to 3 other And Other Stories 2011 titles. Find out about subscribing to upcoming titles here.
Print status: Available
Author: Iosi Havilio
Translator: Beth Fowler
Original language: Spanish
Format: Trade paperback with flaps
Publication date (UK): 3 November 2011
Publication date (US): 5 September 2013
ISBN: 9781908276032
Ebook ISBN: 9781908276070
Availability: World
Number of pages: 224
Reviews
Chloe Aridjis
‘With minimalist beauty and exquisite strangeness, Iosi Havilio offers a mesmerising addition to the literature of solitude.’
Martin Schifino
The Independent
‘Iosi Havilio’s remarkable first novel brings news of an intriguing world’
The Economist
‘An ambiguous tale that verges on dark comedy … With skill and subtlety, the novel hints that a whole society might labour under an illusion of liberty.’
Fatema Ahmed
Prospect
‘Deliberately unshowy, so that plot twists can unfold in the quietest ways.’
Oscar Guardiola-Rivera
‘There is a lot of sex and violence in Open Door, but it is never gratuitous. … You have in your hands a masterpiece.’
Margaret Jull Costa
In Other Words (journal of the British Centre for Literary Translation)
‘A moving and highly original novel. A good translation is one that convinces as a work in its own right. That is what we get here.’
