Project Description

OblivionHéctor Abad Faciolince

Colombia

Héctor Abad Faciolince was born in Medellín, Colombia, in 1958, where he studied medicine, philosophy and journalism. After being expelled from university for writing a defamatory text against the Pope, he moved to Italy. In 1987, shortly after returning to his homeland, his father was murdered, which he processed almost 20 years later in his acclaimed non-fiction novel OBLIVION. In 2008, Abad was a guest of the DAAD’s Artist-in-Residence Programme in Berlin. He now lives again in Colombia and writes a weekly column for the leading Columbian newspaper El Espectador.
OBLIVION sold over 250,000 copies in Spanish and has been adapted as a feature film by the Spanish Oscar-winning director Fernando Trueba. The film won the Goya Award 2021 for Best Ibero-American film. (Abad’s novel THE FARM was number 1 among the bestselling novels in Colombia for six months and has sold over 75,000 copies). His latest novel EXCEPT FOR MY HEART, ALL IS WELL was nominated for the Vargas Llosa Prize 2023. Abad is a member of the Colombian movement Hold On Ukraine. His next novel will be dedicated to the late writer Victoria Amelina.
For further information, please visit also: > Wikipedia Site

»One of the fundamental writers of our language.«
Javier Cercas, El País

»One of Latin America’s most revered and successful authors.«
The Guardian

Héctor Abad Faciolince© Daniela Abad

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Except for My Heart, All Is Well

A priest is waiting for a heart transplant. He is tall, he is fat, he is educated, he is good, but his very size means that it is not easy to find a donor. As he lives in a place with a lot of stairs, he has to move somewhere else, to a single-storey house. He is taken in by a sad, recently separated friend who lives with her two children and a maid who also has a daughter. The priest, in a way, also begins to act as a father in his new house, and he finds the family, almost conjugal, life he had never experienced before, fascinating. The children, the food, the two women with whom he lives, he likes it all more and more every day.
Except for My Heart, All Is Well (“Salvo mi corazón, todo está bien”) speaks of marriage as a fortress under siege: those who are inside want to get out, and those who are outside want to get in.

Quotes

Except for My Heart, All Is Well

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Héctor Abad Faciolince and Tyto Alba: Oblivion (Graphic Novel Adaption)

Oblivion (»El olvido que seremos«) is a heartbreaking tribute to the author’s father, Héctor Abad Gómez, whose criticism of the Colombian regime led to his murder by paramilitaries in 1987. Twenty years in the writing, it paints an unforgettable picture of a man who followed his conscience and paid for it with his life during one of the darkest periods in Latin America’s recent history. Transcending the political, it shines as one of the most exquisitely written accounts of profound love between a father and son that modern literature has to offer. Oblivion gets a second wind with a graphic novel adaptation by the Catalan artist Tyto Alba,  whose exceptional drawings and watercolours give the characters new shade and meaning, adding a sculptural dimension to the book that, while respecting its essence, transforms it into an independent work of art.

Quotes

El olvido que seremos (graphic novel adaption)

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What Was Present. Diaries 1985-2006

Héctor Adad Faciolince’s intimate diaries What Was Present. Diaries 1985-2006 (“Lo que fue presente. Diarios 1985-2006”) read like an educational novel. Included here are those that date from the end of 1985 (when he was a 27-year-old student) until the publication of his most acclaimed novel, Oblivion (“El olvido que seremos”), in 2006. In them he relates the anguish of someone who, although he wanted to be a writer, wrote very little fiction and a lot about his obsessions, his lovers, and the difficulties of his daily life. Abad wanted to leave in writing, at least, that he was incapable of being a writer. A raw testimony about how a vocation is born and how one learns to face the difficult and exciting adventure that is life.

“It seems that I’m not capable of being anything, if it’s that I’m trying to be something. I am nothing: a writer who doesn’t write, except a diary. A lover who isn’t capable of loving. A father who doesn’t act like one. A distant husband.” (Héctor Abad)

Quotes

What Was Present. Diaries 1985-2006

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The Farm

In his latest novel The Farm (“La Oculta”), Héctor Abad presents us with the moving story of a closely-knit Colombian family.

When the Ángel family’s beloved home in the Antioquian wilderness falls into danger, they manage to defend it against the guerrillas and, later, the paramilitaries – but at a high price. When their parents die, Pilar, Eva and Toño have to decide the fate of their father’s legacy. While Pilar and Toño want to keep La Oculta, Eva, who experienced something terrible at the old farm house, is determined to sell. As the siblings each struggle with their own problems, their inner conflicts threaten to tear apart not only their home but also their family.

Written from alternating points of view in precise and atmospheric language, the Ángel family will win the reader’s heart immediately. Like his bestselling novel Oblivion, The Farm is part autobiographic, part fiction. It was number 1 among the bestselling novels in Colombia in 2014.

Quotes

The Farm

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A Culinary Manual for Sad Women

No one knows the recipe for happiness – and still Héctor Abad has given us a whole book of them. In A Culinary Manual for Sad Women (“Tratado de culinaria para mujeres tristes”), he shows us how to prevail against almost any misfortune, be it old age or melancholy, and enchants the reader with anecdotes that seem to come straight out of a witch’s cauldron.

Quotes

A Culinary Manual for Sad Women

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Oblivion

Oblivion (»El olvido que seremos«) is a heartbreaking tribute to the author’s father, Héctor Abad Gómez, whose criticism of the Colombian regime led to his murder by paramilitaries in 1987. Twenty years in the writing, it paints an unforgettable picture of a man who followed his conscience and paid for it with his life during one of the darkest periods in Latin America’s recent history. Transcending the political, it shines as one of the most exquisitely written accounts of profound love between a father and son that modern literature has to offer. “Oblivion” has sold over 250,000 copies in Spanish and was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in the USA.

Quotes

Oblivion

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Angosta

The city of Angosta is divided into three parts, according to social standing. When the aspiring poet Andrés starts working for an organization that aims to expose the crimes of the upper class and the drug lords, he himself soon becomes a victim. Left behind are Jacobo Lince, the charismatic owner of an eccentric bookshop, and Candela, Andrés’s girlfriend. Together, they take up where he left off. Written in poetic language, the futuristic Angosta is a mirror of the violent reality of many parts of Latin America, and both a beautiful and terrifying modern fable.

Quotes

Angosta

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Betrayals to Memory

“Truth and memory are always tinged with oblivion, or distortions of memory that are not recognized as such.” In this book, Héctor Abad discusses the difficulty of recomposing the past, summed up – as the title of the book indicates – as Betrayals to Memory (“Traiciones de la memoria”). The trigger for this journey into the past is a poem found in the bag of the author’s father, Héctor Abad Gómez, on the day of his assassination in Medellín, August 1987. The author wrote in his diary at that moment: “We found him in a pool of blood. I kissed him and he was still warm. But so still, so still. The rage almost choked my tears. The sadness wouldn’t allow me to feel the full extent of the rage. My mum took off his wedding ring. I looked in his bag and found a poem”. The poem, attributed by some to Jorge Luis Borges, becomes the protagonist of the book. In 2006, when Abad published Oblivion, some literary critics reproached him for having claimed Borges as the poem’s author in order to sell more books. In confronting this controversy, Abad began to investigate the origins of the poem. The task was not to be an easy one, owing to the fact that certain Borges specialists insisted the poem was not by the great Argentine writer. Through interviews and meetings with writers and journalists, the author ends up winning the battle over oblivion and betrayals of memory. In addition, the book contains two short chapters in which the author speaks of his experience as an emigrant in Turín, Italy, during his years in exile after his father’s assassination. He also reflects on the complex theme of the self and the other in literature.

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4 Toes

A missing toe is the protagonist of the story and becomes the visual motif that animates the pages and invites the reader to search, count and chase: “I didn’t even know which toe was missing. I only knew it wasn’t the big one, because the big one was there, chubby, on the left side of the right foot. But it could have been any of the others: the little one, the one next to it, the one in the middle, the one that on the hand is the index finger. He had lost a toe and didn’t know which one”. 4 Toes (“4 dedos”) presents, in a funny and almost innocent way, classic themes of children’s literature such as monsters, aliens, and games, mixed with feelings of filial love, self-love, insecurity, and luck.

Quotes

4 Toes

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A Little Silver Ball

A Little Silver Ball (“Una bolita plateada”) tells of the intimate relationship between Ce and Cilia, granddaughter and grandmother (respectively), and how they build, between them, longings, dreams, motivations for life, and death. Also at the centre of the story is a little silver ball that Ce’s great-grandfather began to model, supposedly around something very valuable, and which over the years has been coated with different layers of aluminium foil, making it a perfect sphere. The ball passes from one generation to the next, with the intention that it will come in useful at a time of great need. But Cilia, despite the crises suffered during her lifetime, never dares to unravel the ball to get to the coin, the pearl, the diamond, or whatever is hidden inside. And she asks Ce, who will inherit the little ball, never to open it either, telling her: “It is better never to fathom what is contained in the heart of the ball, nor in the hearts of people.”

Hector Abad’s first children’s book can be read by readers of all ages, since it touches on deep and vital issues with great poetry: there are treasures that are hidden in the centre of the body, in the heart of memory and even in the middle of a little silver ball. Perhaps they are not visible, but they are there.

RIGHTS

NOVELS
Except for My Heart, All Is Well (“Salvo mi corazón, todo está bien”)
Bogotá, Madrid: Alfaguara 2022, 360 p.
Nominated for the Vargas Llosa Prize 2023
Number 1 of bestelling list of the leading Colombian newspaper El Tiempo for 27 weeks
English sample translation by Anne Mclean available
Brazil
: Companhia das Letras (Brazilian rights) · France: Éditions La Part Commune · Portugal: Alfaguara · Romania: Curtea Veche · USA: Archipelago (North American rights)

The Farm (“La Oculta”)
Bogotá: Alfaguara 2014, 340 p.; Madrid: Alfaguara 2015
Over 75,000 copies sold in Spanish language
Number 1 among the bestselling novels in Colombia for 6 months and the 5th bestselling novel in 2015
Nominated for the Mario Vargas Llosa Prize 2016
Cálamo Prize 2015 – Book of the Year in Spain
Denmark: Aurora Boreal 2018 · Egypt: Sefsafa Culture & Publishing · France: Gallimard 2016 · Germany: Berenberg 2016, btb pb 2018 · Greece: Patakis 2018 · The Netherlands: De Geus 2016 · Portugal: Quetzal 2016 · UK: World Editions 2018 · USA: Archipelago 2018

Oblivion (“El olvido que seremos”)
Bogotá: Planeta 2006; Barcelona: Seix Barral 2007, 274 p., 2016; Bogotá, Madrid: Alfaguara: 2018, 324 p.
Over 250,000 copies sold in Spanish language
Film directed by Fernando Trueba, Caracol Televisión, released 2020
Goya Award 2021 for the Best Ibero-American Film
Selected for the Cannes Film Festival 2020
Selected for the Biarritz International Film Festival 2020
Selected for the Rome Cinema Festival 2020
Brazil: Companhia das Letras 2011 · China: The Writers Publishing House · Croatia: Petrine · Denmark: Aurora Boreal · Egypt: Al Arabi 2014, Dar Altanweer · France: Gallimard 2010, pb 2012 · Germany: Berenberg Verlag 2009, Buxus Stiftung 2022 · Greece: Patakis 2017 · Italy: Einaudi 2009, La Repubblica-L´Espresso 2018 · The Netherlands: De Geus 2010 · Portugal: Quetzal 2009, PRH (Alfaguara) 2023 · Romania: Curtea Veche 2014 · Turkey: Livera Yayinevi · UK: Old Street Publishing 2010, World Editions 2019 · Ukraine: Compas 2021 · USA: Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2012, pb 2013

Angosta
Bogotá: Seix Barral 2004, 320 p.; Alfaguara 2020, 344 p.
Film&TV rights sold to the producers Mauricio Bejarano and
Bernardo Da Fonseca
Voted Best Foreign Novel of 2004 in China
Brazil: Companhia das Letras 2015 · France: Editions JC Lattès 2010 · Croatia: Petrine Knjige 2022 · Turkey: Livera Yayinevi 2022 · USA: Archipelago (North American rights)

Basura
Madrid: Lengua de trapo 2000, 190 p., Bogotá: Alfaguara
China: The Writers Publishing House · Denmark: Aurora Boreal 2020 · Italy: Bollati Boringhieri 2008 · Portugal: Quetzal 2012

Fragments of Furtive Love (“Fragmentos de amor furtivo”)
Bogotá: Alfaguara 1998, 357 p.
Film rights sold to One Film Corp.
Portugal: Presença 2001 · Sweden: StorySide AB (audio rights, worldwide)

A Culinary Manual for Sad Women (“Tratado de culinaria para mujeres tristes”)
Medellín: Celacanto 1996; Alfaguara 1997, 2011, 2017 pb, 120 p.
Brazil: Companhia das Letras 2012 · France: Editions JC Lattès 2010 · Germany: Wagenbach 2001, 2017 · Greece: Enalios 2000 · Italy: Sellerio 1997, 2010 · Kuwait: Alsurra (Arabic) 2018 · Portugal: Presença 2001, Quetzal 2010 · Sweden: StorySide AB (audio rights, worldwide) · UK: Pushkin Press 2012

Asuntos de un hidalgo disoluto
Bogotá: Ed. Tercer Mundo 1984; Alfaguara 1999, 220 p.
UK: Brookline Books 1996

GRAPHIC NOVEL
Oblivion (“El olvido que seremos”)
(Based on the eponymous novel, illustr. by Tyto Alba)
Barcelona: Salamandra Graphic (Penguin Random House) 2021, July 20222, 144 p.

CHRONICLES AND SHORT STORIES
Betrayals to Memory (“Traiciones de la memoria”)
Bogotá: Alfaguara 2009, 265 p.
France: Gallimard 2016 · Germany: Berenberg 2011

El amanecer de un marido
Bogotá: Seix Barral 2008, 225 p.

Oriente empieza en El Cairo
Barcelona: Mondadori 2002, 203 p.; Bogotá: Alfaguara 2011
Egypt: Sefsafa

Palabras sueltas
Bogotá: Planeta 2002, 250 p.

Malos pensamientos
Medellín: Ed. Universidad de Antioquia 1991, 101 p.

POETRY
Involuntary Testament (“Testamento involuntario”)
Bogotá: Alfaguara 2012; Valencia: Pre-Textos 2015, 130 p.
Germany: dtv (Excerpt) 2018

Un poema en el bolsillo
(of: “Testamento involuntario”)
Italy: Edizioni Lindau 2021

CHILDREN’S BOOKS
4 Toes (“4 dedos”)
(ill. by Miguel Mesa, Juan David Díez)
Medellín: Mesa Estándar 2022, 40 p.

A Little Silver Ball (“Una bolita plateada”)
(ill. by Johana Bojanini)
Medellin:
Mesa Estándar 2018, 32 p.

PARTICIPATION IN ANTHOLOGIES
Vamos a leer
Germany: dtv 2018
(Excerpt of Involuntary Testament)

Dinner Table (Kate Young and Ella Risbridger eds.)
(A Culinary Manual for Sad Women /“Tratado de culinaria para mujeres tristes”)
UK: Head of Zeus (Bloomsbury Publishing)

DIARY
What Was Present. Diaries (1985-2006) (“Lo que fue presente. Diarios (1985-2006)”)
Bogotá: Alfaguara 2019; Mexico City, Barcelona: Alfaguara 2020, 616 p.