A powerful and playful narrative flair marks the nine stories in El problema de los tres cuerpos (winner of the Premio Nacional de Cuento Joven Comala 2016), where a fluid prose goes hand in hand with the roughness of the themes, the crudeness of the situations mixes with all pervasive irony.
With virtuosity in the use of varied narrative registers, playful formal structures, skillful handling of high and low language, these stories evoke an internal balance which at every moment is about to break. Hitmen and prostitutes, working class figures prostrated by disease and accidents, abandoned lovers who sink lower and lower are the characters that populate situations in which desolation and desperation are endemic.
However, there is no catastrophic sentiment to these scenarios: violence is not an external agent suddenly altering the course of the events, but forms an inevitable part of life to be looked upon with sense of (black) humour.
With an eye on the social phenomena of modern day Mexico -religiosity, narco-traffic, poor working conditions- and descriptions of Northern desertic landscapes, the author pays homage to literary tradition (Juan Rulfo) as well as winking to contemporary authors such as Julián Herbert and Yuri Herrera. Nonetheless Rodríguez’s great narrative agility and linguistic confidence are undoubtedly the mark of her own personal voice.

GRANTA BEST SPANISH LANGUAGE WRITER UNDER 35

ENGLISH LANGUAGE SAMPLE AVAILABLE

 

96 pages – Original language: Spanish (Tierra Adentro, México, 2016). Foreign Editions: Italian (Gran Vía, 2021); World Spanish (Minúscula, 2019); Audio/Spanish (Storytel, 2020)