Translation Rights TQE / The Kiss of the Cossack

Mendicutti has been able to surprise us in every single one of his previous seven novels. Now, in El beso del cosaco (The Kiss of the Cossack) the surprise is a knockout. The book partly returns to the world of El palomo cojo (The Limping Pigeon), but focusses on the distorted memories of an old woman of ninety-two.

After an absence of over sixty years, Elsa Medina Osorio appears one day at La Desembocadura, the big, old, run-down family house, which she instantly recognises through the unmistakable reek of spuds and artichokes that it exudes. She has returned with the intention of having a huge celebratory party after which she feels she will be able to die happy. However, perhaps it is that familiar odour, or her own fantastical imagination, or the telling letters from her sister Magdalena, or maybe it is the time that has gone by —or all of it together—that magically gives her the power of resucitation. It is a power that even extends to the dead, especially those who have succumbed to the kiss of the enigmatic Vladimir the Cossack. Slowly, La Desembocadura fills up with the common pack that makes up the lineage of the Medina, in particular Genaro, the dandy cousin who had been found in a cell in the Mother of God convent, murdered by the young Diego, who, rumour had it, was having an unnatural relationship with him. No-one will be able to miss the Fiesta de la Agonía (The Party of Agony), not even the longed-for, but fateful, Vladimir...

The more complex a novel is, the richer it is in nuances and characters, and the more difficult it becomes to summarise in a single paragraph. El beso del cosaco (The Kiss of the Cossack) made us laugh, ponder, evoke memories and shudder to the core. It is a magnificent reflection on the twisted and fantastic powers of memory and, without a shadow of a doubt, it is the culmination of a significant literary trajectory.

Eduardo Mendicutti was born in Sanlúcar de Barrameda (Cádiz) in 1948.  In 1972 he moved to Madrid where he obtained a degree in Journalism and where he has lived ever since. He has won prizes such as the Café de Gijón and Sésamo.  He has published over ten works, all of them enthusiastically received by critics and public alike, and which have been translated into different languages.  Two of his novels, El palomo cojo and Los novios búlgaros, have been brought to the big screen, the first directed by Jaime de Armiñán and the second by Eloy de la Iglesia. His novel El ángel descuidado won the Critics’ Prize in Andalucía in 2002.