Hands-down one of the best collections I've read this year! It's made up of two novellas and seven stories, though Sexual Education (the second novella) alone is well worth the jacket price. And that has everything to do with Charlotte Coombe's translation, which so brilliantly captures the visceral, frequently unglamorous language around sex, the body, teenagerdom and the drudge of lower middle-class life - it's the kind of dazzling translation you can immediately tell the translator has found an English voice that truly works for their author. Darkly funny, feminist, and with a touch of the weird, and whether translated literature is new for you, or it's your main "genre," you can't go wrong with this delightful book
— Jacob R"...a gorgeous, blackly humorous look into the lives of Colombians struggling to find their place in society, both at home and abroad." --Publishers Weekly, starred review
In two novellas and seven short stories, Fish Soup blends cynicism and beauty with a rich vein of dark humour.
"Waiting for a Hurricane" follows a girl obsessed with escaping both her life and her country. Emotionally detached from her family, and disillusioned with what the future holds if she remains, she takes ever more drastic steps to achieve her goal, seemingly oblivious to the damage she is causing both herself and those around her. "Worse Things" offers snapshots of lives in turmoil, frayed relationships, family taboos, and rejection of and by society. And "Sexual Education" examines the attempts of a student to tally the strict doctrine of abstinence taught at her school with the very different moral norms that prevail in her social circles.
At once blunt and poetic, Garcia Robayo delves into the lives of her characters, simultaneously evoking sympathy and revulsion, challenging the reader's loyalties throughout the remarkable universe that is Fish Soup.