Fiction

Pantalones azules

by Sara Gallardo

Description

Pantalones azules is a novel with a deceptively simple appearance. As Leopoldo Brizuela has noted, fifty years after its first publication, it "reveals itself as the recounting of a process infinitely more subtle" than an impossible love affair, which was the key interpretation by its contemporaries. On the contrary, Pantalones azules is a story of multiple disillusionments: those of Alejandro, the young protagonist from a well-to-do family, Catholic and anti-Semitic, who encounters the limits of his convictions upon meeting Irma, an immigrant with a Jewish mother who lost her parents in the European war; those of Irma, who receives not compassion but the inhuman brutality of Alejandro’s convictions; and those of Elisa, Alejandro’s virgin fiancée, who must decide her position within the patriarchal family structure and whether to accept her role as a future wife subjected to the tacit violence of her fiancé. But more than a story of love and disillusionment, Pantalones azules is a prodigious representation, for its freshness and vitality, of the distances that separate social groups, cultures, generations, and genders within the same time and place. A prime example of Sara Gallardo’s extraordinary ability to bring her characters to life with wisdom, humor, a touch of malice, and a surprising economy of resources, this second novel by the author also broadens her perspective on the landscape: the countryside, the city, and the river are depicted here with unusual accuracy, possible only for someone who has experienced landscape and language as a unique amalgam, a defining characteristic of her works. First published in 1963, Pantalones azules has circulated only minimally since then. Fiordo is proud to bring this superb novel by one of Argentina’s greatest writers back to readers.

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Rights Information

World rights available.

Author Biography

Sara Gallardo was born in Buenos Aires in 1931. Granddaughter of the renowned Argentine naturalist and minister Ángel Gallardo, great-granddaughter of Miguel Cané, and great-great-granddaughter of Bartolomé Mitre, the extensive library in her family home opened the doors to literature for her at an early age. Her first novel, Enero, was published in 1958 and received excellent critical acclaim. It was followed by Pantalones azules (1963) and the extraordinary Los galgos, los galgos (1968), which established her in the public eye and earned her the Municipal Prize. In addition to novels, she wrote children's literature and a collection of short stories (El país del humo, 1977). She also contributed to magazines such as Primera Plana and Confirmado, as well as to the newspaper La Nación. Eisejuaz (1971) confirmed her as a unique voice. Over the past years much of her work has been reissued and translated into other languages. In the late 1970s, she left Argentina and began working as a correspondent in Europe. She died in Buenos Aires in 1988.

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Founded in 2012 in Buenos Aires, Fiordo publishes literary fiction and nonfiction in print, digital and audiobook format in Spanish throughout the world, for readers who appreciate thoughtful editions and good design.

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Series Part

Bibliographic Information

  • Publisher Fiordo
  • Publication Date 2015
  • Orginal LanguageSpanish
  • ISBN/Identifier 9789874568861
  • Publication Country or regionArgentina
  • FormatPaperback
  • Pages136
  • ReadershipGeneral
  • Publish StatusPublished
  • Original Language Titlespa
  • Original Language Authorsspa
  • Edition8
  • Copyright Year1963
  • Dimensions210x140 mm
  • SeriesFicción

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