Navidad & Matanza
Carlos Labbé, Will VanderhydenAt least that's how the story—or one of many stories, rather—goes. All of them are told by a journalist narrator, who recounts the mysterious case of the Vivar family from an underground laboratory where he and six other "subjects" have taken up a novel-game, writing & exchanging chapters over email, all while waiting for the fear-inducing drug hadón to take its effect, & their uncertain fates.
A literary descendant of Roberto Bolaño & Andrés Neuman, Carlos Labbé's Navidad & Matanza is a work of metafiction that not only challenges our perceptions of facts & observations, & of identity & reality, but also of basic human trust.
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Carlos Labbé, one of Granta's "Best Young Spanish-Language Novelists," was born in Chile & is the author of six novels, including Navidad & Matanza and Locuela, & a collection of short stories. In addition to his writings he is a musician, and has released three albums. He is a co-editor at Sangria, a publishing house based in Santiago & Brooklyn, where he translates & runs workshops. He also writes literary essays, the most notable ones on Juan Carlos Onetti, Diamela Eltit, & Roberto Bolaño—three writers whose influence can be seen in Navidad & Matanza.
Will Vanderhyden received an MA in Literary Translation from the University of Rochester. He has translated fiction by Carlos Labbé, Edgardo Cozarinsky, Alfredo Bryce Echenique, Juan Marsé, Rafael Sanchez Ferlosio, & Elvio Gandolfo.