Canción de Tumba / The Grave Song

Canción de tumba narra la azarosa vida de Guadalupe Chávez, prostituta y madre del narrador que, a lo largo del libro, se encamina hacia la muerte, víctima de leucemia. La enfermedad de Guadalupe impone al protagonista un ejercicio autobiográfico que lo llevará a sumergirse en su infancia y su juventud, al tiempo que indaga en la compleja relación con su madre, con sus propios hijos y con su país, México, asolado por la corrupción, la violencia y la destrucción.

La novela de Julián Herbert saca esqueletos del armario, crea una voz narrativa genuina y febril, dibuja un México desalmado poblado por personajes que ya forman parte de lo mejor de la literatura en español. Canción de tumba es poesía, música y una lectura inagotable.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

The life of Guadalupe Chávez, a prostitute suffering from leukemia, narrated with plenty of love and harshness by her writer son.

Jaen Novel Prize 2011.

Elena Poniatowska Novel Prize 2012.

"In The Grave Song, the twenty-first century breathes down our necks with its most ferocious breath. A stark novel, though wise and poetic in its own crudeness, moving along the lines of The Edge of the Abyss, by Fernando Vallejo. I do not think there is anyone as brilliantly contemporary in Spanish, as Julián Herbert." --Laura Restrepo

The Grave Song tells the story of Guadalupe Chávez' eventful life, a prostitute and the narrator's mother, heading throughout the book towards her own demise from leukemia. Guadalupe's disease presses an autobiographical exercise upon the protagonist, immersing him in his childhood and youth, at the time he delves into the complex relationship he has with his mother, his own children, and his country, Mexico, devastated by corruption, violence, and destruction.

Julián Herbert's novel takes the skeletons out of the closet, creates a genuine and feverish narrative voice, and portrays a soulless Mexico, inhabited by characters that are already part of the best literature in the Spanish language. The Grave Song is poetry, music, and an inexhaustible read.