Carlos Fonseca

“He mentioned a Russian novel in which the protagonist remembers a childhood game that consists of two parts. First, there is a set of toys, a dozen absurd objects called nonnons. Shapeless, bulky objects, twisted or full of holes, somewhat like fossils or sea anemones. Objects that would make little sense on their own, except that an equally illogical and twisted mirror is sold along with them, and when you hold the objects up to it they finally take shape. Suddenly, there is the little elephant, the giraffe, or the piglet that everyone has looked for unsuccessfully. I suspect, said Sarapura in the letter’s last line, that the toys in your dream work with a similar logic. He signed off with a hug from them both and promised to write again very soon. After”
― Carlos Fonseca, Austral: A Novel

“Do you hear? Sometimes it’s as if the mountain wants to say something. I’m not surprised. This village is full of echoes. And even so, what I need most is the silence of the mountain. My father always told us that that was what the soldiers had taken away. Nature swaddled us like a mother does her children. And in that silence, birds sang and animals squealed. Then came the city and its suffocating commotion, as if they were trying to use noise to silence the turmoil of their dirty consciences. I can tell you: the morning they came to kill my father, the mountain took me in. Two”
― Carlos Fonseca, Austral: A Novel