A literary rentrée with names like Cormac McCarthy, Mircea Cărtărescu, Delphine de Vigan, Deborah Levy or Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah needs no introduction. But there is more: this autumn will allow us to confirm (hopefully) the good impression left by Amor Towles, Lana Bastašic or Giosuè Calaciura with their previous books, or discover new names such as the singer Olivia Ruiz. Another option is to immerse yourself in bestsellers like Stephen King, Paula Hawkins or the latest Montalbano by the late Andrea Camilleri.
The American Cormac McCarthy (Providence, 1933) is something like the Clint Eastwood of literature. He hadn't published a novel since 2006 (the mythical The Road) and now we get, in the same volume, The Passenger and Stella Maris (Random House, November 10), two interconnected stories about two brothers, Bobby and Alicia Western, obsessed with her past, since her father was one of the physicists who helped develop the atomic bomb. The passenger talks about Bobby, a professional diver investigating a plane crash whose remains lie under the Mississippi. Stella Maris is a dialogue between Alicia, diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and the psychiatrist of a mental hospital.
Hundreds of young actors appeared in 1999 for the casting to play Harry Potter in the movies. At the end, there are just two. Daniel Radcliffe won but who was rejected? David Foenkinos (Paris, 1974) explores the type and figure of the second in Number Two (Alfaguara/Edicions 62, September 21).
The Romanian Mircea Cărtărescu (Bucharest, 1956) –the little birds say that a future Nobel Prize winner–, publishes The Right Wing on September 26), the last installment of the fascinating Blinding trilogy –published by Periscopi in Catalan– and this time it is set in 1989, the year of the fall of communism.
Delphine de Vigan (Boulogne-Billancourt, 1966) throws herself into the dark side of social networks in Los reyes de la casa (Anagrama/Edicions 62, October 11), about a woman who just wants to be famous, which she ends up getting creating a YouTube channel with her children, and the police investigating the murder of one of them.
Along with De Vigan, a good number of French-speaking authors will occupy bookstores this fall. Baby Apocalypse October 20) by Virginie Despentes (Nancy, 1969) deals with the disappearance of a teenager. The literary debut of the famous singer Olivia Ruiz (Carcassonne, 1980) is The color of your memories September 26), about a woman who inherits the family dresser with many drawers that fed her childhood fantasies but at the same time will now awaken family ghosts . Goebbels Violin (Duomo/Edicions de 1984, September 7), by Yoann Iacono (Bordeaux, 1980) tells the true story of the violin of the Japanese Nejiko Suwa, one of the most famous musicians of the 20th century. From another author from the same city, Claire Etcherelli (Bordeaux, 1934), her success from the sixties Élise or true life is rescued
And, of course, the last Goncourt award, The most recondite memory of men (Anagrama/Més Llibres, October 30), which fictionalizes the search for a legendary and forgotten writer, the work of the Senegalese Mohamed Mbougar Sarr (Dakar, 1990) .
For her part, the British Deborah Levy (Johannesburg, 1959), better known here as an essayist, publishes The Man Who Saw It All (Random House/Angle, November 3), where she recounts how, in 1988, Saul Adler, a historian narcissistic, he is hit by a car on Abbey Road, after which he gets up and poses for a photo taken by his girlfriend, which he decides to take with him to East Berlin. But, apparently, the blow has altered his sense of time and will allow him to jump through history.
Another author born in Africa and resident in Great Britain, in this case the last Nobel Prize for Literature, the Tanzanian Abdulrazak Gurnah (Zanzíbar, 1948), is the author of La vida, después (Salamandra/La Magrana, September 8), set in German Africa, just before the First World War.
It is striking that two people as different as Barack Obama and Bill Gates agree that Lincoln Highway (Salamandra, September 1) by Amor Towles (Boston, 1964) is their favorite recent novel. It is about the odyssey of a group of young people without money and with pending accounts who decide to seek redemption in different and stimulating routes.
Among the novelties from Italy, I am Jesus (Peripheral) by Giosuè Calaciura (Palermo, 1960), a road movie starring Jesus of Nazareth at the age of 30, stand out a priori. The Book of Houses (Anagrama / Periscopi, September 14) by Andrea Bajani (Rome, 1975) is the story of a man and a country through the houses in which he has lived.
In short narrative, the Croatian Lana Bastašic (Zagreb, 1986) publishes Milk teeth (Sixth Floor/Periscopi, October 3), a set of stories about growing up. And Woody Allen (New York, 1935), in a humorous register, offers Zero Gravity (Alliance).
Bestseller readers are spoiled for choice. The British Paula Hawkins (Harare, 1972) returns to the fray with a domestic noir titled Blind Spot (Planeta/Columna, October 11). Master Stephen King (Portland, 1947) takes up the fantastic genre with a disturbing Fairy Tale (Plaza
Other titles of interest are Gray Bees (Alfaguara) by the Ukrainian Andréi Kurkov (Saint Petersburg, 1961), about a beekeeper on both sides of the war; The word for red (Asteroid/Angle, September 26) by Jon McGregor (Bermuda, 1976), about an expedition to Antarctica; Bastard Dorothy Allison (Greenville, 1949) autobiographical portrait of the 'white trash' in the US; and Monkey boy (Almadía, November 2) is a family autofiction by Francisco Goldman (Boston, 1954).
