Fitzcarraldo picks up Nettel's 'gripping' fourth novel

Guadalupe Nettel’s fourth novel Still Born, a story that examines the lived experiences of women and the decision of whether or not to have children, has been acquired by Fitzcarraldo Editions.

The novel, which will be translated by Rosalind Harvey, follows Alina and Laura, who are independent and career-driven women in their mid-thirties, neither of whom have built their future around the prospect of a family. Laura has taken the decision to be sterilized, but as time goes by Alina becomes drawn to the idea of becoming a mother. When Alina’s daughter survives childbirth – after a diagnosis that predicted the opposite – and Laura becomes attached to her neighbour’s son, both women are forced to reckon with the complexity of their emotions.

Associate publisher Tamara Sampey-Jawad has acquired world English rights to the novel from Andrea Montejo at Indent Literary Agency. UK publication is scheduled for June 2022. North American rights were sold to Grace McNamee at Bloomsbury US, to be published in early 2023. 

Sampey-Jawad said: "In prose that is as gripping as it is insightful, Guadalupe Nettel explores maternal ambivalence with a surgeon’s touch, carefully dissecting the contradictions that make up the lived experiences of women. Still Born treats one of the most consequential decisions of early adulthood – whether or not to have children – with the intelligence and originality that have won Nettel international acclaim, and we are thrilled to be welcoming her to Fitzcarraldo Editions."
 
Nettel was born in Mexico in 1973 and grew up between Mexico and France. She is the author of the international-award winning novels El huésped (2006), The Body Where I was Born (2011), After the Winter (2014) and three collections of short stories, all published by Spanish-language publishing house Anagrama. Her work has been translated into more than ten languages and has appeared in publications such as Granta, the White Review, El País, the New York Times, La Repubblica and La Stampa. She currently lives in Mexico City where she is the director of the magazine Revista de la Universidad de México.