La segunda venida de Hilda Bustamante
Salomé Esper

NOVEL | 2023 | 168 pages

Hilda Bustamante is 79 years old, and, like every other person, one day she dies. The unusual thing is that, a little later, Hilda come back to life in her tomb, is able to break out of the coffin, and, without fully understanding what is happening, she returns to her home—much to the surprise of Alvaro, the love of her life; Amelia, her adored adoptive granddaughter; and the “girls” at church, who always considered her a discretely extraordinary. This novel tells the story of Hilda and the small, marvelous scandal of her resurrection.

With exquisitely economical writing, Salomé Esper surprises us with how she dominates the art of storytelling, both through her humor and the sweetness with which she treats her characters. La segunda venida de Hilda Bustamante is the admirable first novel of an author who is here to stay.

RIGHTS: spanish EDITORIAL SIGILO | portuguese (brazil) AUTENTICA | italian SUR

“Salomé Esper’s novel captures readers from the moment it starts until the very end—and without clueing them into the fact that they’re in a fable, and then suddenly in a tragedy. It forces us to read like we did as children, without caring whether every single thing is possible.”
— Emiliano Monge, El País
“With a fable-like tone and shimmering prose, Salomé Esper constructs a story that reminds us of the best of the cannon.”
— Adriana Bertorelli, El Mundo