Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Ariel Magnus is an Argentine writer and literary translator. He has published numerous novels and story collections, and he has edited anthologies of Argentine humor and misanthropy. Chess with my Grandfather is the first to be translated into English. Kit Maude is a Spanish translator based in Buenos Aires."Shifting between such genres as novel, biography, philosophical essay, and historical fiction over the course of this work, Magnus attempts to rectify his grandfather’s failure to transcribe his life in a single meaningful, coherent work. As he probes the intersection of racism, nationalism, and war, Magnus dips in and out of history and fiction to reveal telling philosophical lessons about the tendency of man to make black and white the cultures of the world, when in reality we are all pieces of the same game."
World Literature Today
“Literary fiction merges with documentary source materials in a feat of the imagination that carefully reconstructs the Buenos Aires of the period: we wander through Harrods Department Store, watch the boxing at Luna Park and even get drunk at the Gran Rex. … <i>Chess with My Grandfather</i> is a philosophical exploration but also an effort to make the unfulfilled desire of a grandfather a reality, to ‘write the novel he never wrote’.”
"La Nación"
Ariel Magnus leaves no stone unturned in his efforts to learn more about his grandfather and the country to which he emigrated in the 1930s. Chess with My Grandfather is a playful, genre-shifting novel combining tales of international espionage, documentary evidence, and family lore. In this extraordinary book, Magnus blends fact and fiction in a delirious exploration of a dark period of history, family, identity, the power of art and literature and, of course, the fascinating world of chess.