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The Fragility of Bodies by Sergio Olguín

Looking for a novel to take on holiday with you this Summer? The Fragility of Bodies isn’t your usual poolside read…

When Veronica Rosenthal hears about the suicide of a local train driver who has left a note confessing to four mortal ‘accidents’ on the train tracks, she decides to investigate. For the police the case is closed (suicide is suicide), for Veronica it is the beginning of a journey that takes her into an unfamiliar world of grinding poverty, junkie infested neighbourhoods, and train drivers haunted by the memory of bodies hit at speed by their locomotives in the middle of the night.

Aided by a train driver with whom she has a tumultuous and reckless love affair, a junkie in rehab and two street kids willing to risk everything for a can of Coke, she uncovers a group of men involved in betting on working-class youngsters convinced to play Russian roulette by standing in front of fast- coming trains to see who endures the longest.

The Fragility of Bodies is set in Buenos-Aires and has been made into a TV series currently showing in Argentina. Sensual and tense, the novel is fiercely critical of a system that tolerates the powerful and wealthy of Buenos Aires putting the lives of young boys at risk for their entertainment.

“A wonderful addition to the Argentine noir tradition.”
EL DIA

“A deftly scripted and page-turner of a read from beginning to end, this is an original and extraordinary novel by an author who exhibits an engaging narrative storytelling style.”
MIDWESTERN BOOK REVIEW

“Olguín memorably explores the gulf between the haves and have-nots of Buenos Aires.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Sergio Olguín was born in Buenos Aires in 1967 and was a journalist before turning to fiction. Olguín has won a number of awards, among others the Premio Tusquets 2009 for his novel Oscura monótona sangre (“Dark Monotonous Blood“) His books have been translated into German, French and Italian. The Fragility of Bodies is his first novel to be translated into English.

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