Fracture

Critically acclaimed, prize-winning author Andrés Neuman's Fracture is an ambitious literary novel set against Japan's 2011 nuclear accident in a cross-cultural story about how every society remembers and forgets its catastrophes. An earthquake unnerves Tokyo on March 11, 2011, triggering the Fukushima nuclear disaster--and a tectonic stirring of the collective past. Mr. Yoshie Watanabe, an aging executive at an electronics company and a survivor of the atomic bomb, feels as though he is a fugitive of his own memory. As the seams of his country threaten to come undone yet again, he braces himself to make the biggest decision of his life. Meanwhile, four women narrate their own memories of Watanabe to an enigmatic Argentinian reporter investigating his life. Their stories, told in different languages and describing different loves, map a sociopolitical tour of Tokyo, Paris, New York, Buenos Aires, and Madrid, proving that nothing ever happens in one place, that every human event reverberates to the ends of the earth.

About the Author :
Andres Neuman was born in 1977 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and grew up in Spain. Neuman was selected as one of Granta's Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelists and was elected to the Bogota-39 list. Traveler of the Century was the winner of the Alfaguara Prize and the National Critics Prize, Spain's two most prestigious literary awards, as well as a special commendation from the jury of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Neuman has taught Latin American literature at the University of Granada. Nick Caistor is a translator, journalist, and author of non-fiction books. He has translated some forty books from Spanish and Portuguese. These include works by Paulo Coelho, Eduardo Mendoza, Juan Marsé, and Manuel Vázquez Montalban. He has twice been awarded the Valle-Inclán prize for translation. He has also published a Critical Life of the Mexican poet Octavio Paz and a cultural history of Mexico City. He is currently writing a study of the Cuban leader Fidel Castro, and translating several of the new generation of Argentinian writers. As a journalist, he has presented and produced many programs on Radio 4 and the BBC World Service, and contributes regularly to the Times Literary Supplement and the Guardian. Nick lives in Norwich with his wife Amanda Hopkinson and their cat. Nick Caistor is a translator, journalist, and author of non-fiction books. He has translated some forty books from Spanish and Portuguese. These include works by Paulo Coelho, Eduardo Mendoza, Juan Marsé, and Manuel Vázquez Montalban. He has twice been awarded the Valle-Inclán prize for translation. He has also published a Critical Life of the Mexican poet Octavio Paz and a cultural history of Mexico City. He is currently writing a study of the Cuban leader Fidel Castro, and translating several of the new generation of Argentinian writers. As a journalist, he has presented and produced many programs on Radio 4 and the BBC World Service, and contributes regularly to the Times Literary Supplement and the Guardian. Nick lives in Norwich with his wife Amanda Hopkinson and their cat. Janet Metzger, an Earphones Award-winning narrator, has performed as a stage, television, voice, and film actor and as a jazz vocalist in hotels and supper clubs. For five years she was the voice of Headline News, now HLN, during which time she also promoted features and news stories for CNN and CNN International. She is a graduate of Florida State University. Paul Woodson has lived in the US and England, received a BFA in acting at Boston University, and has been acting and singing since the age of thirteen. He has recorded over one hundred audiobooks, many in the historical romance and Highlander genres, as well as fantasy novels, thrillers, classics, and young adult titles.