Join the Griffin Bay Book Club for a discussion of Kamchatka by Argentinean writer, Marcelo Figueras. Everyone is welcome to attend. 

Kamchatka, a novel by Marcelo Figueras is a fictional first-person remembrance of childhood in Argentina during the Dirty War (1976-1983), a time of political instability and government-sponsored violence when thousands of civilians were “disappeared.” The story begins when the narrator, then a ten-year-old boy, is uprooted from his comfortable life in Buenos Aires and forced to go into hiding in the country with his activist parents and younger brother. 

Kamchatka is a realistic imagining of a child’s experience of political turmoil. The potential dangers take the form of vague references in overheard conversations and other oblique manifestations. The narrator describes his (often humorous) exploits with his younger brother, his attempts to emulate Harry Houdini’s daring escapes, and his love of Superman. The overall effect is that of a happy childhood occasionally marred by darker overtones (e.g., the unexpected and unexplained death of a young family friend and the need to assume fake names).   

About the Author Born in 1962 in Buenos Aires, Marcelo Figueras is an award-winning journalist, screenwriter, and novelist. He has also been a war correspondent and singer. Figueras makes daily contributions to the Spanish-language literary blog El Boomeran: www.elboomeran.com. His books have previously been translated into French, German, Dutch, Polish and Russian; Kamchatka is his first novel to be published in English. 

Kamchatka (Paperback)

By Marcelo Figueras, Frank Wynne

$14.95

ISBN-13: 9780802170873
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Grove Press, Black Cat, 5/2011

Other Editions of this Title

---