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Book Title

Nevada Days

Subtitle
A Novel
Author 1
Bernardo Atxaga; Translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa
Body
Nine months as a writer in residence can prove unnerving for anyone. For Bernardo Atxaga, newly arrived with his wife and two daughters, research at the Center for Basque Studies in Reno, Nevada, is anything but straightforward. The neon lights and harsh, windswept desert appear full of ominous signs: A raccoon that watches the house at night, eyes glowing. A series of sexual assaults on campus by an unknown assailant. A spider scuttling endlessly in a glass jar kept by a colleague. And the kidnapping and murder of a young college girl in the house next door.

Nevada Days, told in a series of diary-like entries, mixes fragments of the Basque diaspora with a constellation of lively incidents in Reno and memories from Atxaga’s childhood. The routines of everyday life are the only way to resolve the deep wounds of history and relationships, however fleeting or enduring. Trapped in the deeply alien landscape of Nevada, Atxaga weaves together past and present to see the American West from a refreshing, if also ominous and unsettling, vantage.
 

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List Price
$16.00
ISBN
ISBN
978-1-55597-810-5
Format
Format
Paperback
Publication Date
Publication Date
Subject
Subject
Pages
Pages
352
Trim Size
Trim Size
5.5 x 8.25
Keynote
A seductive, unclassifiable blend of autobiography and fiction set in Reno from the preeminent Basque author
 

About the Author

Bernardo  Atxaga
Credit: Ernesto Valverde
Bernardo Atxaga is a prizewinning author whose books, including Seven Houses in France and The Accordionist’s Son, have won international critical acclaim. His works have been translated into thirty-two languages. He lives in the Basque Country.

https://www.atxaga.eus/en
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Margaret Jull Costa is the award-winning translator of José Saramago, Javier Marías, Bernardo Atxaga, Eça de Queiroz, and Fernando Pessoa. She is the translator of The Accordionist’s Son, Nevada Days, Obabakoak, and Seven Houses in France by Bernardo Atxaga.
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Praise

  • Finalist for the 2019 PEN Translation Prize
  • “The sublime meets the surreal in this hypnotic blend of memoir and fiction by the great Basque writer as he explores Reno, Nevada, an outpost teeming with David Lynch–like menace and haunted dreams.”—Oprah.com
     
     
  • “Atxaga’s intriguing new novel, Nevada Days, is a marvelous mélange that combines interwoven time- and storylines with journal-like entries, fiction, and memoir to create a literary effect at once entertaining and disturbing.”Pasatiempo

  • “In brief journal-entry chapters translated into English by the inimitable Margaret Jull Costa, Atxaga’s grand curiosity never dulls or wavers, nor does his wife’s and two daughters’. Part of the thrill of Nevada Days is to marvel at a family’s ceaseless desire to explore America at a crossroads during the limited time they have.”The Millions
     
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