La frontera encantada

In Barranquilla, a boy is divided in two by his grandmother. "One side of your face is elegant, and the other is vulgar," she tells him in front of the mirror, drawing a line from his forehead to his mouth, casting a kind of social spell. Although she tries desperately to make the boy's "distinguished" side shine, the household falls into bankruptcy, triggering the father's mental breakdown and revealing, in unexpected and hilarious ways, the plebeian origins the grandmother insists on hiding. The Enchanted Border is the story of the life that follows this foundational event. It is a profound, stark, and endearing exploration of the meandering paths the narrator travels as the spell grows and manifests itself in love, sex, and friendship. And above all, it is the account of the enormous effort he makes to reclaim freedom and protection through the pleasure of the body. Like a "coastal Arabian Nights," this novel delicately oscillates between narrative, essay, archival material, and fantasy. A long fairy tale, it encapsulates the aesthetic and political vision of an extraordinary author.