Translation Rights TQE / The Maid and the Boxer

The Viking is an old boxer who wants to prove to his supervisors in the police department that he is still very much a tough guy, and so he participates in the mission of bringing some young suspects to the cells at the dictator’s Palacio Negro. A maid, María Elena, starts working for the grandson of her old boss and finds that there is no one on her first day. After asking the neighbors and taking alarming calls from family members, María Elena realizes the importance of Albertico and Brita’s disappearance. She will have to turn to an old acquaintance in the police department – one who had worked for her old boss and whom she had dated – for help. Through her innocent inquiries, María Elena is witness to savage arrests and to fights put up by subversive groups, among whom she fleetingly recognizes someone familiar. Worry turns to anguish when she needs to ask herself the whereabouts of her daughter and grandchild. The most action-packed novel by Horacio Castellanos Moya brings together the stories of several characters in the midst of the most unimaginable barbarity.

Horacio Castellanos Moya was born in 1957 in Tegucigalpa (Honduras) but was brought up in El Salvador, and he has lived, since 1979, in different American and European cities. He worked as a journalist in Mexico City for twelve years, lived in Frankfurt (Germany) from 2004 to 2006 as a guest writer of the International Frankfurt Book Fair, and he currently lives in Pittsburgh. His work has been awarded the National Prize by the Central American University, and he was a finalist of the Rómulo Gallegos International Prize. The English edition of Insensatez (Senselessness) won the XXVIII Northern California Book Award for its English translation.

Praise for the author:

“Horacio Castellanos’ novels leave no one indifferent, and La sirvienta y el luchador less than any other. The intensity of the prose and the story told do not give the reader a break.” Rosa Mora, Babelia

“La sirvienta y el luchador is a fast-paced, sharp-edged, essential novel.” Fernando Castanedo, Babelia

“The author is one of the most solid Latin American writers, and owns a will of style as powerful as original.” Diego Gándara, La Razón

“The only writer of my generation who knows how to narrate the horror, the secret Vietnam, that was Latin America for a long time.” Roberto Bolaño

“Tirant Memory stands out due to its scrupulous evocation of a conspiracy atmosphere and its use of historical events.” The London TLS

“A welcome and eye-opening addition to the new literature of the Latin American nightmare.”

Time Out New York

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

“The most committed and vital writer from Central America.” La Vanguardia

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.