Rita Indiana
Made in Saturn
A generational portrait of Latin America in its post-revolutionary come-down, through the eyes of a recovering heroin addict and artist.
These are the children of revolutions, and this is their story. This is the Caribbean. This is Argenis Luna: an artist who no longer paints, a heroin addict who no longer uses, and an overgrown child trying to make sense of his inheritance in a country where his once-revolutionary father is now part of the ruling elite. Thrown out of rehab in Havana, with Goya’s tyrannical god Saturn on his mind, Argenis picks his way through the detritus of an abandoned generation: the drag queens, artists, hustlers and lovers trying to build lives amidst the wreckage.
Mesmerising and visionary, Made in Saturn is a hangover from a riotous funeral, a rapid-fire elegy for the revolutionary spirit, and a glimpse of hope for all who feel eclipsed by those who came before them.
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More Info
- From the author of Tentacle (And Other Stories, Jan 2019) and Papi
- Rita Indiana’s novel Tentacle was the winner of the 2017 Grand Prize of the Association of Caribbean Writers.
- Made in Saturn was on Book Riots ‘Books To Look Out for in 2020’.
- Rita Indiana made her name in the Caribbean as a neo-merengue musician. You can watch some of her music videos here.
- Check out Rita Indiana’s piece on rap sensation Cardi B for Granta magazine
- You can read about Rita Indiana’s views on the political revolution happening in Puerto Rico
- Rita’s new single ‘Como un Dragon’ has been Heralded as one of the top 14 songs of April in NPR and has been listed as one of the few ‘Great New Pop Songs to get you on the dance floor’ in the Boston Herald.
Print status: Available
Author: Rita Indiana
Translator: Sydney Hutchinson
Original language: Spanish
Format: B-Format Paperback
Publication date (UK): 23 January 2020
Publication date (US): 24 March 2020
ISBN: 9781911508601
Ebook ISBN: 9781911508618
Availability: World English
Number of pages: 176
Reviews
Sam Sacks
Wall Street Journal
‘Nothing human is alien to Ms. Indiana. Like France’s brilliant punk-realist Virginie Despentes, she sees through the costumes of class and ideology. Her characters are raggedly real [...] A wild and liberating book.’
Suzi Feay
Financial Times
'Dominican writer Rita Indiana made a splash in 2018 with the unclassifiable Tentacle. Made in Saturn, the tale of a drug-addicted artist going clean, promises to be less baffling but equally hip.'
Suzy Exposito
Rolling Stone
‘Award-winning queer Dominican author Rita Indiana makes a blazing comeback to the rap game...Her critically acclaimed novels, such as Tentacle, thoroughly dissect the relationships between gender, class and race in Caribbean society...Her sixth novel, Made in Saturn, is due for release in 2020 via British publisher And Other Stories.’
Kirkus Review
'A deeply nuanced, atmospheric, and graphic depiction of mental illness, drug addiction, and recovery.'
Book Riot
‘Captures the Caribbean setting and complex political history with vibrant detail.’
Josh Cook
Porter Square Books
'A powerful but quiet story about a young artist lost in the shuffle of politics and revolution; an artist who cannot be saved by his talent, who cannot find solace in the hedonism of drug use, and still must find a way to be a human being in a turbulent world. A vibrant, yet complex take on the "sad young literary man" story and another brilliant work by an author whose stature in world literature will only continue to grow.'
El País
‘It is not only a book that’s new, like all of Indiana’s works, but it is a book that is, in a strict sense, good. Very good. Modernist . . . as well as classic. A Duchampian Goya, we might say.’
El Tiempo
‘Each of her novels is marked by a concept; each is part of something larger. Made in Saturn, for example, is positioned as complement to Tentacle, and the author has announced that there will be a new novel to complete the trilogy. What unites these books is the critique of power. It is a contemporary and rebellious art, ready to fight.’
UDL Libros
‘Rita Indiana...is a voice with power and personality. She demonstrates it in her latest novel Made in Saturn, in which the children of all the revolutions that promised a free Latin America but ended in failure are embodied in Argenis, a character as real as he is magical.’
Revista de Letras
‘Compared to Tentacle, which drew on science fiction and were you could sense the influence of Lovecraft, Made in Saturn practises a kind of scathing hyperrealism in a Caribbean setting weighed down with corruption, ideological ruin and outrageous consumption.’
Sin Embargo
‘Through her stark portrait of the protagonist and her unmistakably Caribbean prose, Rita Indiana shows why she is one of the most attractive voices in Latin American literature today’
