All That Dies in April

Travel the globe with the most influential voices from Argentina to Zambia! Read the World A to Z features translated novels from A to Z—one country for every letter of the alphabet. All That Dies in April takes you to Argentina with an ancestral tale rooted in a long Latin American history of rural displacement by Mariana Travacio, one of Argentina's most celebrated authors. “Hypnotic, almost ancestral voices echo through this novel like whispers in the wilderness, like orphan cries and wounds of light accompanying us on a powerful journey from which none of us will emerge unscathed." —Agustina Bazterrica, bestselling author of Tender Is the FleshSet in a stark landscape of cliffs and precipices high above the Argentine pampas, Mariana Travacio's All That Dies in April follows the members of one small family as each makes a solitary journey out of their treacherous mountain home in search of a better life. Lina has dreamed for years of leaving her tiny village in the drought-stricken region. Her son left long ago to find work and a better fortune. Relicario, her husband, is content to stay put in the land of his ancestors, tending to their graves. Ignoring Relicario's pleas, a desperate Lina decides to abandon their home in search of her son, work, and water. She starts her journey on foot, and Relicario eventually follows behind, bringing a donkey and a sack with his ancestors' bones. Both witness unspeakable violence, cruelty, and folly, but the hope of reuniting their family keeps them alive. Poetically charged, restrained, and delicately condensed, this suspenseful novel captures the haunting cycle of perpetual inequality and its impact on families in Latin America.