Project Description
The Year We Talked with the Sea Andrés Montero
Chile
Andrés Montero, born in Santiago de Chile in 1990, is a writer and oral storyteller. He has a master’s degree in Literary Creation from the BSM-UPF, in Barcelona. Together with Nicole Castillo, he runs the Casa Contada School, a space for learning and community around writing and storytelling, and hosts the television programme Storytellers on the Road. In 2017 he won the X Iberoamerican Prize of Novel Elena Poniatowska of Mexico City for the novel TONY NOBODY, and in 2022 he received the Arts Critics’ Circle Prize, the Santiago Municipality Prize, the Chilean Academy of Language and the Ministry of Cultures’ Prize for Best Literary Works in Chile, for DEATH COMES CREEPING.
© Andrés Montero//
The Year We Talked with the Sea
The Year We Talked with the Sea («El año en que hablamos con el mar») tells the story of twins Julián and Jerónimo, who are very close during their childhood on a remote island in the Pacific, but later go their separate ways: One never wants to leave his homeland, the other wants to explore the entire world. The love for a woman, Milena, and a misunderstanding that is not cleared up because the men remain silent instead of talking, will divide the brothers for half a century and leave them almost without communication. The only exception is an unanswered letter in which the mythical golden bell appears, which the twins once searched for together on the seabed off their island. When the journalist Jerónimo seeks inspiration at the end of his career and takes a trip to his homeland, he has no idea that he will not be able to leave it for a whole year, and that he will have to confront his past and his brother for better or worse. This almost mythical story is told primarily by a multiple narrative voice, the villagers who have set up a pub in a ship that has been washed ashore and turned upside down, from where they observe and comment on the twins’ every move. Will the two be reconciled? An unexpected twist surprises the reader at the end of this enchanting novel.
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Tony Nobody
In Tony Nobody (»Tony Ninguno«), an Arab abandons a child in a village circus along with two old books: The Thousand and One Nights. For lack of a name, the boy is called Tony Nobody. When nine years later the trapeze artist is injured and the circus is in a precarious situation, she decides to memorize the stories and tell them to the audience. Her act is a great success: people come back every day to find out how the story continues, and the competition wants to poach her. Dreaming of a better life, the young woman will thus bring Scheherazade and King Shariyar to life to the point of confusing hers and Tony’s roles within the world of truth and illusion.
RIGHTS
NOVELS
The Year We Talked with the Sea (‘El año en que hablamos con el mar’)
Santiago de Chile: La Pollera 2024, 226 p.
Denmark: Aurora Boreal · Italy: Edicola
Taguada
Santiago de Chile: Sudamericana (PRH) 2019, 156 p.
Tony Nobody (“Tony Ninguno”)
Santiago de Chile: La Pollera 2016, 148 p.
English sample translation available
X Iberoamerican Prize of Novel Elena Poniatowska
Pedro de Oña Novel Prize 2015
Finalist Clarín Novel Prize (Argentina)
Denmark: Jensen & Daalgard 2019 · Italy: Edícola 2018 · Spain: Lastarria & De Mora 2022
SHORT STORIES
Death Comes Creeping
(‘La muerte viene estilando’)
Santiago de Chile: La Pollera 2021, 130 p.
Arts Critics’ Circle Prize 2022
Santiago Municipality Prize 2022
Prize for Best Literary Works of the Ministry of Cultures’ Chilean Academy of Language 2022
Greece: Dioptra 2024 · Italy: Edícola 2023 · Mexico: Polilla 2023
ESSAY
Why Tell Tales in the 21st Century
(‘Por qué contar cuentos en el siglo XXI’)
Santiago de Chile: Casa Contada 2020
Spain: Palabras del Candil 2020, 106 p.
Colibri Medal Award 2021
JUVENILE WORK
(Rights: SM Chile)
Bestiary of Chile
(‘Bestiario de Chile’)
Illustrations by Diego Donoso Suazola
Santiago de Chile: Editions SM 2024, 64 p.
Honorable Mention Colibri Medal 2023
Three Nights at School
(‘Tres noches en la escuela’)
Illustrations by Diego Donoso Suazola
Santiago de Chile: Editions SM 2023, 168 p.
Someone Knocks at the Door. Chilean Legends (‘Alguien toca la Puerta. Leyendas chilenas’)
Illustrations by Adrián Gouet
Santiago de Chile: Editions SM 2020, 104 p.
Marta Brunet Prize 2017
Prize of Santiago Municipality
On the Horizon a Ship is Drawn
(‘En el horizonte se dibuja un barco’)
Illustrations by Sebastián Ilabaca
Santiago de Chile: Editions SM 2018, 128 p.
Steamboat Prize Finalist 2019
Finalist Santiago Municipality Prize 2017
