Looking over Julio’s shoulder, we examine Aliza’s photographic collages and philosophical inquisitions and join him as he recreates journeys Aliza took through Central America, revealing ever-greater connections between the actions of the past and the sufferings of the present. The layers of research and writing left behind lead Julio to the last surviving member of a people who were destroyed by sickness and exploitation. The work of her anthropologist father helped her to understand the fatal impact this venture had on the native Nataibo people. Some of Alizia’s writings examined the creation of a “pure Aryan settlement” in Paraguay by, among others, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, sister of Friedrich. Knowing her death was imminent, she had requested that he be the person to edit her incomplete memoir. In Austral (MacLehose Press, 224pp, £18.99) by Carlos Fonseca, translated by Megan McDowell, a man called Julio is summoned to a house recently occupied by Aliza, whom he had known before she became a well-respected writer.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |