Translation Rights TQE / Tyrannical Memory

When Pericles Aragón, a journalist very critical of the Salvadorian dictator «El Brujo», is arrested and imprisoned, his wife Haydée decides to start a diary. Without realizing it, while taking note of what she simply considers her conversations with her husband, the diary narrates the arrest, the imprisonment, the banning of visiting rights, and simultaneously, the couple’s social and familiar setting: the difference between their fathers – one, a military man addicted to the régime; the other, a liberal who opposes the tyrant – and the destinies of their three children. And so a coup d’état is being prepared. It is Clemen the dissolute and irresponsible son of Pericles and Haydée that becomes the protagonist of the second narrative line: a tale of the adventures of two conspiring fugitives that need to get away.

And so, this novel full of adventures is also the dramatic tale of how Haydée took consciousness and became committed to her husband’s cause. Tirana memoria is the wonderful incarnation of a country’s history in the destiny of a family, and so this novel reconstructs the founding episodes of a saga that has branched out in other novels such as Desmoronamiento (Falling to Pieces) or Dónde no estén ustedes (Where You Are Not).

Without a doubt, Tirana memoria is Horacio Castellanos Moya’s most ambitious novel. It orchestrates a rich combination of voices and literary registers, from the private diary and correspondence to the dramatic dialogue or the cinematographic action. And yet its extraordinary value comes from the many different points of view and the narrative construction.

About his works

“Each novel by Castellanos Moya confirms the importance of the author, his narrative art, his incisiveness in describing his country.” Livres Hebdo

“El asco has become a classic, a classic for its rigorous readers, as rigorous as the idea and the structure of the story. A text that is read without faltering. It is absolutely recommendable.” Miguel García-Posada, Abc

“El asco can be read as an essay of that masterpiece that is Insensatez.” Mauro J. Cárdenas, San Francisco Chronicle

“Horacio Castellanos Moya possesses a great dose of vital experiences, has the instinct to narrate events, skillfully handles ellipsis and uses a ductile language, rich in nuances and capable of reliably taking on any discursive form. It isn’t strange then that Desmoronamiento, like the previous title by this author, is an excellent novel.” Ricardo Senabre, El Cultural (El Mundo)

“Desmoronamiento is a beautiful and terrible novel with a prodigious style and a wise structure.” Luis de la Peña, La Razón

“This may very well be the best book by Castellanos Moya… His acid sense of humor threatens the hormonal stability of imbeciles, who after reading it feel the irrepressible need to hang the author in a public square. To be honest, I cannot think of anything more honorable for a real writer.” Roberto Bolaño, about EL ASCO

Horacio Castellanos Moya was born in 1957 in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. He was brought up in El Salvador and has lived, since 1979, in different cities throughout America and Europe. He worked as a journalist in Mexico City for twelve years and lived in Frankfurt, Germany, as a guest writer of the International Frankfurt Book Fair. He currently teaches in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and has been invited as a guest professor at the University of Tokyo. He is the author of eight novels, six of which have been published by Tusquets, translated into several languages and critically acclaimed. In 2009 the English translation of his novel Insensatez (Senselessness) received the XXVIII Northern California Book Award.