"Employing a language that is sharp, concise and visceral, it proves his talent as a natural storyteller and as a social chronicler and poet of some refinement." —Morning Star"There is a timeless quality to Consiglio’s prose...a storyteller of rare ingenuity." —Splice"Glimmering." —Publishers Weekly"[Consiglio] carves out a singular space by focusing on characters who do not quite have a place of their own." —Full Stop"His stories are told with dispassionate realism while being varnished with a surrealist gloss, creating his own in-between style...Occasional poetic turns reminiscent of Pablo Neruda erupt within the narrative." —Culture Trip**********Praise for Jorge Consiglio"A moving testament to the beauty and banality of human relationships." —Publishers Weekly"A masterpiece that refuses to stay still." —Culture Trip"Fate could be likened to a pointillist painting by Seurat, with each dab of colour and each descriptive passage contributing to what is finally a beautifully structured and brilliantly shimmering whole." —New York Magazine (The Strategist UK)"In the realm of fiction, an author has total authority over their characters, and they can inject interactions with meaning and pattern-play in a way therapists warn us not to in our day to day lives. It takes a particular level of craftsmanship to do this at the level of the sentence, with the effortlessness that Consiglio seamlessly achieves, and to sweep a reader so tenderly into the progress." —White Review"A muted and unhurried novel that insists on the validity of the imperfect present." —Kirkus"The beauty of this novel...is that it provides no answers, but many questions. It can be reflected upon, re-read, and reconsidered." —BookBlast"The language of Fate has teeth and claws." —Books and Bao"Fate is a rich tapestry of language, a sharp depiction of the vagaries of fate and a thoughtful meditation on the human condition." —The Monthly Booking"Consiglio’s writing aches with poetry through its attention and complexity." —The Skinny"Packed full of sensuality and written in fresh, candid prose." —The Quietus"Employing a language that is sharp, concise and visceral, it proves his talent as a natural storyteller and as a social chronicler and poet of some refinement." —Morning Star"There is a timeless quality to Consiglio’s prose...a storyteller of rare ingenuity." —Splice"Glimmering." —Publishers Weekly"[Consiglio] carves out a singular space by focusing on characters who do not quite have a place of their own." —Full Stop"His stories are told with dispassionate realism while being varnished with a surrealist gloss, creating his own in-between style...Occasional poetic turns reminiscent of Pablo Neruda erupt within the narrative." —Culture Trip**********

For Borges fans: The collection opens with a story that is a play on Borges’s “The South” No easy endings: These stories open up vistas, they don’t satisfy with pronouncements or lessons learnedSweeping scope: Moving back and forth across history, and taking on characters in settings as different as military camps and upmarket weight-loss clinics, Consiglio’s subject remains how little we know ourselves, and each otherPrize-winning: Consiglio has won awards in Argentina and Spain for his novels and poetry. Charco will be publishing Sodium , which was a critical darling in Argentina, his newest novel in 2021.Marketing PlansSocial media campaignGalleys availableCo-op availableAdvance reader copies (print and digital)National media campaign

In June 1912 a merchant ship was delayed entering Buenos Aires. During the hours they were kept waiting, the passengers – all on deck – gazed ashore in search of clues about what the future held. They saw cranes, silos, a group of freezing people (the temperature was -2°C) and the serrated outline of a tower. Everything else was shrouded in fog. The chaotic disembarkation represented the conclusion of one chapter of their lives. Yet the minds of the new arrivals were already fixed on the next one. They believed that life was just beginning, that they were starting anew. A young man – tall, stocky and redheaded – broke away from the crowd and strode across the port as if he knew where he was going, heading towards the streets of the city centre. His name was Czcibor Zakowicz. He carried a cardboard suitcase and was wearing a duffel coat. In his pocket was a piece of paper with a name and an address on it. A distant relative, the cousin of a cousin, was expecting him and would put him up and feed him. Zakowicz would do the rest. He found work at a cabinetmaker’s and, in a short time, discovered his relationship with wood was not that of a craftsman. He was organised and successful. He set up a workshop in the Flores quarter and found a talent for inventing fanciful myths. He combined work with tradition and sacrifice.After he turned forty-five, his eyebrow hair began to grow. It became a wild, unkempt thicket that covered the ridge of his brow, curving downwards into his eye sockets until it brushed his eyelids. In the first few years, Czcibor Zakowicz tried to domesticate his brows. He trimmed them every week, more out of embarrassment than vanity. However, it is common knowledge that laziness tends to get the better of even the most determined. Eventually, Zakowicz became resigned to his appearance, and something changed in the look in his eyes.The same thing happened to one of his grandchildren, when he turned fifty. He inherited his grandfather’s overflowing eyebrows, and suffered similar embarrassment until he in turn conceded defeat. He also inherited his grandfather’s sense of urgency, which had made him ambitious in his career. He was an estate agent. In keeping with family tradition – a romantic absurdity – they called him Anatol, and that is how his name was recorded on his birth certificate. He, a skilful operator, took advantage of the exoticism of his name – not his surname but his first name – and turned it into a brand. It was the perfect combination of something both straightforward and unusual, two decisive factors when it comes to selling properties in fashionable neighbourhoods. Anatol, married to a very light-skinned woman, understands like no other the secret of his era, its fickle essence. His company’s logo, for example, is adapted from a nineteenth-century Danish ex libris with text in the Garamond typeface. The efficacy of maximising artifice, an aesthetics of defiance, of bravado. All coming together as one great, effective masquerade. Nothing is concealed from the client, not even their own stupidity.