Trucha panza arriba
Rodrigo Fuentes

SHORT STORIES | 2016 | 124 pages

Gabriel García Márquez Short Story Prize Finalist
Shortlisted for the Society of Authors TA First Translation Prize

In this highly original collection of interconnected short stories, the Guatemalan countryside is ever-present, a place of timeless peace yet also riven by sudden violence. The stories provide glimpses into the life of Don Henrik, a good man struck time and again by misfortune, as he confronts the crude realities of farming life. Over the course of these episodes we meet merciless entrepreneurs, hitmen, drug dealers and fallen angels, all wanting their piece of the pie. Told with precision and a stark beauty, in a style that recalls Hemingway, Trout, Belly Up is a unique ensemble of beguiling, disturbing stories set in the heart of the rural landscape in a country where violence is never far from the surface.

RIGHTS: spanish (guatemala) SOPHOS | spanish (bolivia) EL CUERVO | spanish (colombia) LAGUNA | spanish (chile) LAUREL | english CHARCO PRESS | french L’ATINOIR

“Fuentes is a consistently engaging and original writer…it is a joy to find writing of such high quality.”
— The Times Literary Supplement
“While each of the shorts could stand alone—and do, rather successfully—deciphering and connecting the overlapping threads provides enhanced literary pleasure.”
— Shelf Awareness, starred review
“A smart, controlled debut from a writer who addresses poverty and criminality in a variety of registers.”
— Kirkus
“Fuentes’s prose is emotionally resonant and smartly constructed….These satisfying stories are full of surprises.”
— Publishers Weekly
“With grace and humility, Rodrigo Fuentes has written a subtle, luminous, memorable book.”
— Rodrigo Hasbún, author of AFFECTIONS
“Rodrigo Fuentes’s characters are just as, if not more, memorable as the plots they are a part of. They transcend not only because of what happens to them, but because of what they are. (...) Trucha panza arriba is also held together by something vital that keeps the integrity of the narrative structure and makes the collection more than the sum of its seven stories: the recurrent themes of family, family affections, and the land where the most horrible vices and the most noble virtues bloom. All the cruelty. All the tenderness.”
— Arnoldo Gálvez Suárez, Nómada