El tercer paraíso
Cristian Alarcón

FICTION | 2022 | 264 pages

WINNER OF THE 2022 ALFAGUARA NOVEL PRIZE

The 2020 lockdown is looming, and the protagonist is tempted to withdraw to his cabin on the outskirts of Buenos Aires to weather the storm. As he waits, he starts to grow a garden full of all kinds of plants and flowers. His love of nature encourages him to learn more about the development of scientific practice, the birth of the field of botany, and the great adventures lived during the European expeditions of the 18th century. Meanwhile, he remembers his family, which was torn from its roots in Daglipulli, Chile, by the Pinochet dictatorship.

Little by little, his unusual world finds itself flooded with memories of the humble dahlias grown by his grandmother Alba, the vividly lush, threatening jungle of the Amazon encountered by Humboldt in 1799, and the controlled reliability of the hybrids he buys in nurseries. In this paradise in varying states of conservation, the natural landscape of the southern cone turns into a character with its own rhythms, shaped by the people who have settled within it over the years. History, botany, and family history combine to define the protagonist's character, his life choices, and the way he inhabits the world.

This novel is a brilliant story about the everyday life of an individual, but also the collective tragedies that threaten us all, showing that it's the small, simple things—the personal paradises we build for ourselves—that always save us in the end.

RIGHTS: spanish PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE

“This is a novel that opens the door to finding salvation from collective tragedy in the little things. His prose is of great quality; concise, precise and spare, well-suited to his subjects.”
— Alfaguara Novel Prize jury
“History, botany, and family history come together and mark the character of the protagonist, his life choice, and his way of being in the world.”
— Fernando Aramburu
“As tends to happen with any story in which we decide to immerse ourselves shamelessly, the story of the protagonist’s ancestors seems at times so extraordinary that it deserves to be pure invention.”
— Jose Maria Brindisi, La Nación
“Cristian Alarcón has been able to narrate the violent urban reality of Argentina in recent decades like few others.”
— Andrea Aguilar, El País
“This novel is a rare literary artifact, sustained by a writing that resembles a methodical work of landscape gardening.”
— Domingo Rodenas de Moya, Babelia, El País
“The narration is full of nuances that enrich the level of the narrated and in its reading we do not fail to perceive more than one beneficial shadow of García Márquez. It is an interesting narrative effort and an original and suggestive novel with a language that reaches expressive fullness.”
— Luis Alonso Girado, El Correo Gallego
“Immediately, his taste for the language is perceived and the slowness is appreciated. Because his style, which is cut into short sentences that are apparently simple, invites you to read calmly. A beautiful novel.”
— Ascension Rivas, El Español