This is a rich and surprising novel about desire, freedom and domesticity, which follows the merchant ship cook Boulder as she struggles to navigate the new terrain of a settled life with a partner intent on having a child. GN: I believe that for years no one talked about this because people knew that if we had this debate, if the moral and social dimensions of maternity were questioned and arguments against maternity were heeded to as well as the unfair ways in which nurturing can unfold, many women would have chosen not to reproduce, as is the case in many countries nowadays. It is far more difficult to control a childless woman. Whale provides an unflinching look at two contrasting portraits of national identity in the era of Korean modernisation – equally valid, yet highly oppositional.

STILL BORN | Kirkus Reviews STILL BORN | Kirkus Reviews

Laura, who is working on a thesis, forms an unexpected bond with a troubled neighbourhood household comprising a woman and her young son. The boy is struggling with an aggressive temper directed at his mother after the death of his father. Her strong ideas regarding children and motherhood are put to question when she starts understanding the depth, love and bond of this union.

Gift Wrapping

The novel has just two characters, the unnamed narrator and their time travelling friend Gustine. This sparsity reflects the aridity of a demented mind. Together, they create rooms for Alzheimer’s patients. Rooms in which a chunk of their familiar time and memory is preserved to provide them with shelter in a rapidly erasing memory world.

Still Born: Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize

GN: Well, at that time I certainly didn’t know what was going to happen in the US in 2022. I couldn’t imagine how fragile the preservation of rights we have already achieved is. But I had in mind many other forms of violence: psychological, physical, political, economic; obvious and subtle, that women suffer every day. What follows is Pascal’s journey to himself. He travels the earth looking for his biological father and grapples with questions about his own purpose – a journey that closely mirrors that of Jesus in the New Testament. Unlike my mother’s generation, for whom it was abnormal not to have children, many women in my own age group chose to abstain. My friends, for instance, could be divided into two groups of equal size: those who considered relinquishing their freedom and sacrificing themselves for the sake of the species, and those who were prepared to accept the disgrace heaped on them by society and family as long as they could preserve their autonomy. Each one justified their position with arguments of substance. Naturally, I got along better with the second group, which included Alina.Guadalupe Nettel (born 1973) is a Mexican writer. She has published four novels, including The Body Where I Was Born (2011) and After the Winter (2014). She won the Premio de Narrativa Breve Ribera del Duero and the Premio Herralde literary awards. She has been a contributor to Granta, The White Review, El País, The New York Times, La Repubblica and La Stampa. Her works have been translated to 17 languages. [4] She is the editor of the Revista de la Universidad de México, the oldest cultural magazine in Mexico. Nettel, Guadalupe (16 June 2015). The Body Where I was Born. Translated by Lichtenstein, J.T. Seven Stories Press. ISBN 978-1-60980-527-2. [11] [12]

An extract from Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel, translated by

GN: In Mexico, 11 girls and women are murdered every day, many out of hatred. This is not just something that we just read about in newspapers, very often it’s a friend’s friend or sibling that has been murdered by her partner and many times these guys are not imprisoned or even put on trial. This impunity gives rise to more crimes and even to a normalisation of it. Still Born embraces both the joys of motherhood, and all the milked-up gunk, guilt-tripping and agonising. The decisions made are never straightforward. But this novel is vital in its emphasis on the right for people to make their own choices about their own bodies.’ GN: I think it’s impossible for your biography not to permeate your fiction . I chose Laura as the narrator because I didn’t want to speak about myself in the book. Laura is different from me in many aspects: she’s more extreme, more radical and she has decided not to have children. But I also share some things with her: she’s a scholar, which, in a way, is similar to being a writer, she has a complicated relationship with her own mother and she is interested in Buddhism … Part of my story also permeates the story of Doris and Nicolás. I’m not a widow, I’m more like a divorced woman who restarted her life, but I know what it is like to live in a violent relationship with someone with whom you have children. I know the terror in which a woman like that can live, and how long it takes to heal after.Much of the language used by the lead character, Laura, is purposefully clinical and devoid of emotion. ‘This is why, whenever things started to get serious with a man, I would explain to him that with me he could never reproduce’. (Pg. 20). Did this strike you upon reading? What effect did it have on you and how does it contribute to the overall tone of the story? The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. Partners In Still Born, Guadalupe Nettel renders with great veracity life as it is encountered in the everyday, taking us to the heart of the only things that really matter: life, death and our relationships with others. All of these are contained in the experience of motherhood, which this novel explores and deepens.’