"One day, a young man receives an unexpected letter from his grandmother, kicking off a literary adventure that brings home to him everything he has not seen. Once Upon Argentina relates the lives of the narrator's relatives-- a group of people from all over the world gathered in a land where immigrant traditions merge and thrive. The lives of these relatives intersect, like a set of Matryoshka dolls or a hall of mirrors, as the personal and social stories of twentieth century Argentina converge. Beyond these tales of hardship and triumph, Andres Neuman's novel experiments with the nature of the autobiography, encompassing prenatal memories, expanding the autofiction genre with a new voice and twist. Merging present and past, collective experiences and his own, the narrator explores a genealogy populated by unforgettable characters, offering us the story of the construction of a country, his Argentine childhood, and his early literary discoveries.With extraordinary delicacy and intensity, combining elegy, tragedy, and humor, Andres Neuman reveals a world as real as it is fantastic, as strange as it is our own. Once Upon Argentina is a coming-of-age tale, a political novel, and a love letter to the absent ones."--Publisher's website

"A searing family drama from one of Latin America's most original voices One trip. Two love stories. Three voices. Lito is ten years old and is almost sure he can change the weather when he concentrates very hard. His father, Mario, anxious to create a memory that will last for his son's lifetime, takes him on a road trip in a truck called Pedro. But Lito doesn't know that this might be their last trip: Mario is seriously ill. Together, father and son embark on travels that take them through strange georgraphies, ones that seem to unite the borders of Spanish-speaking world. In the meantime, Lito's mother Elena looks for support in books, undertaking an adventure of her own that will challenge her moral limits. The narratives of father, mother, and son each embody one of the different ways that we talk to ourselves: through thought, speech, and writing. While neither of them dares to tell the complete truth to the other two, their solitary voices nonetheless form a poignant conversation. Sooner or later, we all face loss. Andre;s Neuman movingly narrates the ways the lives of those who survive loss are transformed; how that experience changes our ideas about time, memory, and our own bodies; and how the acts of reading, and of sex, can serve as powerful modes of resistance. Talking to Ourselves presents a tender yet unsentimental portrait of the workings of love and family; a reflection on death, sex, grief, and the consolation of words. Neuman, the author of the award-winning Traveler of the Century, displays his characteristic warmth, humanism, and wide-ranging intellect, giving us the rich, textured, and strikingly different voices and experiences of three singular characters while presenting, above all, a profound tribute to those who have cared for a loved one. "--