The Murmuration

Originally published in Spanish as La Parvâa by Sangria Publishers, 2015.

About the author

Carlos Labbé, one of Granta's "Best Young Spanish-Language Novelists," was born in Chile and is the author of eight novels , including Navidad & Matanza, Loquela, and Spiritual Choreographies (all available from Open Letter) and three collections of short stories. In addition to his writings he is a musician, and has released three albums. He is a co-editor at Sangria, a publishing house based in Santiago and Brooklyn, where he translates and runs workshops. He also writes literary essays, the most notable ones on Juan Carlos Onetti, Diamela Eltit and Roberto Bolaño. 

Will Vanderhyden is a translator of Spanish-language literature. He has a BA in history from Lawrence University and an MA in Literary Translation from the University of Rochester. He has translated work by Carlos Labbé, Rodrigo Fresán, Fernanda García Lao, Dainerys Machado Vento, Camila Fabbri, Laura Fernández, Rodolfo Enrique Fogwill, and Juan Villoro among others. His translations have appeared in journals like Granta, Two Lines, The Literary Review, The Scofield, The Arkansas International, Future Tense, and Southwest Review. He has received two translation fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (2016 and 2023) and a residency fellowship from Lannan Foundation (2015). His translation of The Invented Part by Rodrigo Fresán won the 2018 Best Translated Book Award.

Summary

On the eve of the 1962 World Cup in Chile, a retired sports commentator with a secret ability to influence living beings with his voice encounters one of the directors of the Chilean national team—a feminist with a covert agenda—on an overnight train ride to Santiago. The director convinces the commentator to return to broadcasting in order to call Chile's matches and to utilize his unique vocal power to determine their outcomes.

 

Later, when Chile is facing off against Brazil in the semifinal match, the plan diverges from one of conventional victory and the narrative bifurcates, simultaneously tracking the action on the field and a startling sequence of events that is unfolding in one of the stadium’s luxury boxes, and what initially looks like a story of intrigue and action and an exploration of class warfare, representation, and social justice, emerges as a novel that enacts the notion that art can only transcend through collective creative action. 

 

Within the world of Carlos Labbé’s fiction, this novel can be understood as a continuation and broadening of the political project signaled in his early work and a doubling-down on the formal playfulness and elusive sensibility that characterizes all of his fiction. Popular forms and genres (from science fiction and journalism in Navidad & Matanza, to detective fiction in Loquela, to pop music and protest movements in Spiritual Choreographies) have always been integral to Labbé's oeuvre, and with The Murmuration he engages the world of professional soccer, making his most direct appeal to the masses yet. 

Foreword

Send copies to the top 75 or so Open Letter bookstore accounts: City Lights, McNally Jackson, Elliot Bay, etc.

Approximately 200 advance copies sent to primary publications. This list includes: New York Times, SF Chronicle, LA Times, n+1, New York Review of Books, The Nation, The Believer, Atlantic Monthly, New Yorker, Rain Taxi, Time Out New York/Chicago, World Literature Today, Washington Post, BOMB, Literary Review, Complete Review, Words Without Borders, Harper's, Shelf Awareness, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Review of Books, LARB, Slate, Salon, etc. Also sent to the following trade publications: Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, Booklist, Library Journal.

Advance copies also sent to members of the NBCC Award Committee.

Focus on promoting to readers, reviewers, critics, and academics interested in Juan Carlos Onetti and other "experimental" Latin American writers.

Giveaway through Open Letter newsletter.

Promote on Three Percent and on social media via Open Letter's FB, Twitter, and Instagram accounts.

Ebook available and will be mentioned on all press release materials, Open Letter website, etc.

Virtual event with author and translator.

Focus on reaching the subset of literary advocates who are also big soccer fans. (Tobias Carroll is a prime example, but not the only one.)

Product details

• Authors: Carlos Labbé
• Assisted by: Will Vanderhyden (Translation)
• Publisher: Ingram Publishers Services
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 20.02.2024, delayed
• EAN: 9781960385017
• ISBN: 978-1-960385-01-7
• No. of pages: 200
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; FICTION / Sports, FICTION / Political, FICTION / World Literature / Chile, soccer, fifa, chile, world cup,