THE “PENSATIVA” PAGE “Después del fin” By Vania Vargas LUCIA ESCOBAR/ ELPENSATIVO
The first book of short stories by the Guatemalan writer Vania Vargas is a collection of disconcerting glimpses whose cinematic style vividly depicts reality. Lone characters move between the stories connected by invisible threads that draw the great themes of literature: loneliness, fear, violence, exile, and death. Vania Vargas was born in Guatemala in 1978. She is a poet, narrator, cultural journalist, and has a degree in literature from San Carlos University of Guatemala. She is the author of the poetry collections Cuentos Infantiles (Catafix editorial, 2010), Quizá ese día tampoco sea hoy (Editorial Cultura 2010), Los
habitantes del aire (Editorial Cultura 2014) and Señas particulares y cicatrices (Catafix editorial, 2015). Her work is also included in the anthologies Microfé: poesía guatemalteca contemporánea (Catafix editorial, 2012) and El futuro empezó ayer, apuesta por las nuevas escrituras de Guatemala (Catafix editorial, 2013). Her written work is also included in the anthologies Brevísimos dinosaurios (CCE, Guatemala, 2009), and in Ni hermosa ni maldita, narrativa guatemalteca actual (Alfaguara 2012). Vargas currently works as the style editor at Editorial Cultura and as a cultural journalist. Recently her works of fiction have generated much attention, and she was was included as an invited artist in the recent Biennial of Art Peace. In the prologue Arnoldo Gálvez Suárez writes, “Brevity is one of the central (vital) markers of the stories that make up Después del fin. Each story is an instant in the life of the characters who come from silence (of obscurity) and who will inevitably return to it. That is why Vargas allows us to know the time in which each of these moments is occurring. That is why every story is accompanied by a time indicated by the
indifferent clock that governs the lives of the characters in the book. Después del fin is more than the sum of its twenty stories, it is a self-sufficient building, temporal not spatial, whose architecture seems to want to reveal to us a secret: when one narrates a moment well, they are recounting a whole life. Each story is presided over by an hour of the day. They are stories which we access briefly, as if we were seeing them through a window trapped in any corner of the city; Stories that leap for the winds, that disrupt and arrest for an instant the implacable hands of time. It is a book written in code and each new story casts a light, a new taste, or a doubt. THIS BOOK WAS PRINTED BY: EDICIONES DEL PENSATIVO, 4TA. CALLE ORIENTE # 38, ANTIGUA GUATEMALA. TO ORDER BOOKS CALL: 7832-2528. BÚSCANOS EN TWITTER COMO @PENSATIVAGT Y EN FACEBOOK COMO EDICIONES DEL PENSATIVO Y CASA PENSATIVA.
agenda cultural
1 DE JULIO AL 30 JULIO EXPOSICION “MUJERES NATURALES” ARTISTAS AMBAR RIVERA / ANA LUCRECIA SUNUM RESTAURANTE Y GALERIA “A LA GRAN PIZZA” 6 A. CALLE 7-19 ZONA 1, QUETZALTENANGO, (PUENTE DE PIEDRA) EXPOSICION COLECTIVA DE ARTISTAS QUETZALTECOS SABADOS Y DOMINGOS DE JULIO FRONTISPICIO DE LA MUNICIPALIDAD DE QUETZALTENANGO. PROYECTO CAMINANDO ARTE, VESSICA GALERIA. 7, 8, Y 9 DE JULIO Segundo Festival de Arte Emergente JUEVES 7 JULIO CONVERSATORIO “EL ARTE PARA
CENTRO AMERICA” 15:00 HORAS. JUEVES 7 JULIO TALLER DE DIBUJO CON MODELO “DANZA EN LAS ARTES GRAFICAS” AMALYAH LEADER (E.U.A.) JAIME MASTRANO (MEXICO) Q.40.00 LLAMAR POR MATERIALES. VIERNES 8 DE JULIO EXPOSICION COLECTIVA “CENTRAL” FESTIVAL DE ARTE EMERGENTE VESSICA GALERIA DE ARTE, 18:30 HORAS. COCTEL. 27, 28 y 29 DE JULIO TALLER INTERNACIONAL DE COMIC EN COLOR Y DIBUJO. LIC. EN DISEÑO GRAFICO FRANCISCO JAVIER TREJO, MEXICO. 16:00 A 19:00 HORAS. Q.120.00 LLAMAR POR MATERIALES.
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