Copyright © 2004 Horacio Castellanos Moya
Translation Copyright © 2008 by Katherine Silver
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or website review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published by arrangement with Horacio Castellanos Moya and his agent, the Ray-Gude Mertin Agency.
Originally published by Tusquets Editores in 2004 as Insentatez.
Publisher’s note: Grateful acknowledgment is made to the Rainmaker Translation Grant Program of the Black Mountain Institute for their support of this book.
Author’s note: I was able to finish this text thanks to the generous support of Ana Carolina Alpírez, Guillermo Escalón, Otoniel Martínez, Rodrigo Rey Rosa, and Edelberto Torres Escobar. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are the product of the author’s imagination and used in a wholly fictitious manner. Any similarity to real persons, alive or dead, is wholly coincidental.
Translator’s note: The translator acknowledges the assistance of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre at the Banff Centre in Banff, Alberta, Canada. Translation of this book was also supported by a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and a PEN Translation Fund award.
Manufactured in the United States of America
First published as a New Directions Paperbook (NDP1052) in 2008
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Castellanos Moya, Horacio, 1957–
[Insensatez. English]
Senselessness / Horacio Castellanos Moya ; translated from the Spanish by Katherine Silver.
p. cm.
eISBN 978-0-8112-1984-6
I. Silver, Katherine. II. Title.
PQ7539.2.C34I6713 2008
863'.64—dc22
2008002235
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin
by New Directions Publishing Corporation,
80 Eighth Avenue, New York 10011
Senselessness Page 11