Antonio Skármeta

Jacques es maestro de escuela en una pequeña aldea chileno y traductor de francés para el periódico local. Debe su pasión por la lengua francesa a su padre parisino, Pierre, quien un año antes regresó bruscamente a Francia sin dar explicaciones. La sensación de abandono de Jacques y su madre se agudiza por su aislamiento en esta pequeña comunidad donde pocos leen o piensan. Mientras Jacques encuentra distracción en un flechazo con la hermana mayor de su alumno, su preocupación por la desaparición de su padre sigue atormentándole. Pero a menudo hay mucho más en una historia que tan solo el tormento que causa. Ésta trata sobre el perdón y las segundas oportunidades.

“Skarmeta treats his characters with a tender hand and, with impressive economy, balances dark humor with a sober and realistic portrait of a stagnant culture whose people are always longing for something better.” —Publishers Weekly

“In this jewel of a novella, Chilean Skármeta…exhibits [a] master touch…The beauty of the telling offsets the sadness and desolation of small-town life and the confusions and revelations that Skármeta describes are common to us all.” —Library Journal

“A cunning little novella.” —Shelf Awareness

“[Skarmeta] knows how to use language without overusing language.” —Tweed’s

“Compelling.” —CounterPunch

“It is amazing how, in so few words, Skármeta is brilliantly able to paint the soul’s complexities and turn the world into a less uncertain place. With exquisite prose, as faint as a sigh, Skármeta weaves a fun and ironic story of the torturous road toward maturity.” —Félix J. Palma, author of the New York Times bestseller The Map of Time

“A Distant Father sparkles. It’s an exquisite bow to life’s absurdity. Antonio Skarmeta’s prose is Chaplinesque—at once gentle-sad and drop-dead funny. And he has a magical touch with physical detail: time and again this tiny novella springs alive in our hands like a pop-up book.” —Leah Hager Cohen, author of No Book but the World

“An enchanting, touching memory of what it feels like to grow up, and the ambivalent knowledge one gains in the meantime.” —Nürnberger Zeitung

“Un padre de película reads just like a summer love story right before coming of age: painful, but at the same time beautiful.” —Berliner Zeitung

“Antonio Skármeta is a cardiac surgeon who is working with words instead of a scalpel.” —Osnabrücker Zeitung

“Skarmeta’s narrative reminds me of fairy tales. Odd fairy tales without fairies and without ogres and without spells, but with just absolutely common people instead. It’s the magic of the commonplace.” —O Globo

“Each fragrant line of Un padre de película is in just the right place. Without excess, every word is positioned with the precision of an artist who works with their eyes closed, fluidly. Without artifice, without sterile rhetoric, and without pyrotechnics.” —La Vanguardia

“Poetic.” —El Periódico de Catalunya