Andrés Neuman

Andrés Neuman (born January 28, 1977) is a Spanish-Argentine writer, poet, translator, columnist and blogger.

Neuman at the 2016 Texas Book Festival

The son of Argentine émigré musicians, he was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to a mother of French and Spanish descent and a father of Eastern European-Jewish descent. He spent his childhood in Buenos Aires, before going into exile with his family to Granada, Spain. The stories of his European ancestors and family migrations, his childhood recollections and the kidnapping of his paternal aunt during the military dictatorship, can be read on his novel Una vez Argentina.[1] He has a degree in Spanish Philology from the University of Granada, where he also taught Latin American literature. He holds both Argentine and Spanish citizenships.

Through a vote called by the Hay Festival, Neuman was selected among the most outstanding young Latin American authors, being included on the first Bogotá39 list . He was also selected by Granta magazine in Spanish and English as one of the 22 Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelists.[2][3]

His fourth novel, the award-winning Traveller of the Century, first to be published in English, was selected among the best books of the year by The Guardian , The Independent and Financial Times . This novel was also shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize,[4] achieving a Special Commendation from the jury; as well as shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award,[5] being named one of "the two frontrunners who so sure-footedly outpaced the strong pack", according to an article written by the jury for The Guardian.

His next novel translated into English was Talking to Ourselves, described by The New York Times as "a contemporary family drama and unflinching story of grief" as well as "a literary adventure",[6] was longlisted for the Best Translated Book Award , shortlisted for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize , and selected as number 1 among the Top 20 books of the year by Typographical Era.[7] His collection of stories The Things We Don't Do[8] was longlisted for the Best Translated Book Award and won the Firecracker Award for fiction, given by the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses with the American Booksellers Association. He is also the author of a travel book about Latin America, How to Travel without Seeing: Dispatches from the New Latin America.[9]

His latest novel, Fracture, "filled with insights into cross-cultural intimacies" according to The New Yorker[10] and "a moving examination of love and human relationships in the face of calamity" according to the Washington Independent Review of Books,[11] was longlisted for the Premio Gregor von Rezzori in Italy,[12] shortlisted for the Premio Dulce Chacón[13] and the Premio San Clemente in Spain,[14] and selected by El Mundo as one of the 5 best novels of the year in the Spanish language[15] as well as one of the books of the year through a poll among critics, journalists and booksellers by El País.[16] It has been recently published in English by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in the US[17] and Granta in the UK.[18]

In one of the essays of his book Entre paréntesis (Between Parentheses), the Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño stated about Neuman: "He has a gift. No good reader will fail to perceive in these pages something that can only be found in great literature, that which is written by true poets. The literature of the twenty-first century will belong to Neuman and to a handful of his blood brothers".[19]