About the Book
The lives of a doctor, his wife, and his patient collide, laying bare the political and personal narratives they have carefully constructed for themselves. A doctor recruits volunteers for the trial of a new recreational drug that exclusively affects women. Among them is "number 4," who becomes emotionally involved with first the scientist, then his wife, a well-known visual artist in the midst of a creative crisis. The scientist is oblivious to the atrocities his new drug will bring to the city; his wife is oblivious to the superfluousness of the objects she has committed her life to exhibiting in galleries and museums. Number 4's presence pierces the couple's complacency, gradually undoing the many certainties they've accumulated in their lives of ease.
About the Author :
Juan Cárdenas (1978) is a Colombian art critic, curator, translator and author of the novels Zumbido (451 Editores, 2010/ Periférica, 2017), Los estratos (Periférica, 2013), Ornamento (Periférica, 2015), Tú y yo, una novelita rusa (Cajón de sastre, 2016) and El diablo de las provincias (Periférica, 2017). He is also the author of the short story collection Carreras delictivas (451 Editores, 2008). He has translated the works of writers as William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, Gordon Lish, David Ohle, J. M. Machado de Assis and Eça de Queirós. In 2014, his novel Los estratos received the Otras Voces Otros Ámbitos Prize. In May 2017, he was named by the Hay Festival in Bogotá as one of the 39 best Latin American writers under the age of 39. Cárdenas currently coordinates the Masters Program in Creative Writing at the Caro y Cuervo Institute in Bogotá, where he works as a professor and researcher. Lizzie Davis is a translator from Spanish to English and editor at Coffee House Press. Her recent book-length translations include Elena Medel's My First Bikini and a co-translation of Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions with Valeria Luiselli.
Review :
Praise for Ornamental Longlisted for the 2021 PEN Translation Award
"With pitch-black comedy, Ornamental, nimbly translated by Lizzie Davis, channels the ways that egomaniacs in science and art--in any field--rise to the top, up the pyramid of capitalism. . . . [T]he rhythm of Cárdenas's writing compels and reassures, as if driven by the very humanity the lab has helped suppress." --Nathan Scott McNamara, The New York Times
"[A] work of subtlety and restraint. . . . What makes Ornamental so deeply affecting, however, is not that its pages come together to form a beautiful work of exterior art--though it does--but its ability to cast unease on our interior worlds. . . . Brilliantly executed and cleverly translated, Ornamental leaves us with a fresh understanding of the creation of art and the nature of meaning-making." --Dashiel Carrera, Los Angeles Review of Books
"Author Juan Cárdenas masterfully tells the tale of the junction of an experimenting doctor, his wife, and his subsidized voluntary narcotic patient. . . . [E]xpertly translated by seasoned editor Lizzie Davis." --Ellie Simon, World Literature Today
"In spare and economical prose, Cárdenas sketches a highly stratified world, where drugs link high society and neighborhoods that are 'a single crush of old houses and ruins'. . . . the overall effect offers both thrills and chills." --Publishers Weekly
"[An] absurdist critique of class inequality. . . . Cárdenas also dabbles in art criticism and curation and uses that knowledge to acidic effect in a social drama that borders on the phantasmagorical. . . . with captivating moments." --Kirkus
"[A]n exhilarating, slippery narrative where the reader knows much truth can be found, if only they can figure out how to decipher it. . . .Cárdenas's prose is economical yet lyrical; many of his images are veritable objets d'art. . . . Lizzie Davis has done a spectacular job rendering Cárdenas's novel in English." --Gillian Esquivia-Cohen, Kenyon Review
"Cárdenas's narrative style hangs on outlines and sketches that give the short novel an allegorical heft surprising for its slimness. . . .It's in the unexpected reversal of focus, from the researcher to Number 4, from the moneyed to the impoverished, that Ornamental commits its boldest act and reminds us of the people sacrificed and ignored by the progress of science." --Sebastian Sarti, Cleveland Review of Books
"Juan Cárdenas is masterful in his rendering of dreamy dreams, in his evocation of workplace psychology, in his urge to keep shifting the structure of his narrative even while he consistently delivers a prose so energetic, restless, and particular that its astonishing poetic qualities--someone 'threatening pain with extortion, ' someone 'signing imagined telegrams of dried monkey meat, ' the night recovering, at last, 'its vulgarity'--don't give us any pause. And translator Lizzie Davis is the next generation's Natasha Wimmer, one of our most rewarding and savvy translators from the Spanish." --Forrest Gander
"In this disquieting dystopia, impeccably translated by Lizzie Davis, the prose of Juan Cárdenas surpasses the beauty promised by the sinister drug of happiness. A very subtle, smart book indeed."--Alia Trabucco Zerán
