Confession

"The story starts in the past, before the dictatorship. A girl from a town outside Buenos Aires is in love with a young man who she sees in church. She is from a very traditional family. She calls him Rafael. At some point, you realise that Rafael is actually Jorge Rafael Videla, who will move on to be president, in fact, the dictatorial leader responsible for one of the worst genocides in our history. I’m not sure how this revelation will translate to readers outside of Argentina, but there is a point where you realise that this nice young man will become a genocidal leader, and that he will die in jail. Kohan takes three interesting episodes in our history. So, we read about the period when the main character is young and you realise who the young man she’s in love with really is. During the second part, there is a failed terrorist attack by a left-wing guerilla group. And then, third, we return to the woman from the first part of the novel who now is an old woman, the grandmother of the narrator. In the last part of the novel, they confess things to each other as they play a very popular card game. In fact, they are talking about the game, but they are also talking about history, and there is a very, very important revelation in this game that changes everything you thought about the young woman in the first section. I love they way Martín Kohan writes. And even though this story is not real, it is based on real events. The people in Argentina had to live together with this kind of horrible historical characters — they lived amongst us in society until they were finally put in jail. In the book, there are no stereotypes. Nobody is good all the time, nobody is bad all the time. Yes. As the saying goes: say, paint your town and you are painting the world. They all bring to the fore local matters, but these matters are all universal too. They all take an important part of our history or tradition. We are a society that went through a horrendous dictatorship. We are a country where a woman gets killed every single day. I didn’t mention this, but also in Samanta Schweblin’s book she talks a lot about the agrochemicals they use in the cultivos , the crops, the fields. It’s very harmful for people, makes them sick, but it makes the vegetables grow efficiently. This is also part of our reality nowadays, and other people’s realities too: marginalised people being used as a laboratory on whom to test agrochemicals. In addition, The Adventures of China Iron talks about the tension between the conquerors and the Indigenous people who lived here. This is also part of our reality. I could have chosen many more books, because there is actually a lot of wonderful, interesting literature being written in my country at the moment. And it is more than ever important to read them, because at this time in history we are undergoing many serious problems, as artist and writers, we are being targeted and attacked. Claudia Piñeiro is the International Author of the Day at The London Book Fair (11-13 March, Olympia London). Find out more about The London Book Fair here ."