This author explores the intricate connections between identity, memory, and cultural heritage. His short stories and novels are distinguished by their penetrating character psychology and evocative atmosphere, drawing readers into the depths of the human experience. Through his narrative mastery, he captures the essence of modern life and its elusive truths. His works are celebrated for their literary quality and profound insights into the human condition.
A vivid, unforgettable and unsentimental tale of the teeming wildlife that flourished on the banks of the industrial Tyne in the early 1950s, and still flourishes there today, The Kestrel in the Crane is illustrated with the artwork of James Alder and his son Rod, who finished the account his father began in 1953.
The protagonists of these seven stories are already defeated by their own messianism. They retrospectively recount the unjust circumstances that turned them into victims or criminals. The cast of antiheroes in Sacrifices includes a blind man, Tiresias, that seeks intimacy in a labyrinthic Mexico City; a dying pilot who finds solace reading Antoine de Saint-Exupery on a beach in Biarritz; and a taxidermist painter who predicts various Venezuelan massacres in his own Guernica. These revelatory short stories tread the line between surrealism and realism, proving that fiction is always political. Despite the international settings, Blanco Calderon's mythical characters are the product of a Venezuelan legacy of martyrs whose sacrifices failed to lead the country to democracy.
Simpatia is set in the Venezuela of Nicolas Maduro amid a mass exodus of the intellectual class who have been leaving their pets behind. Ulises Kan, the protagonist and a movie buff, receives a text message from his wife, Paulina, saying she is leaving the country (and him). Ulises is not heartbroken but liberated by Paulina's departure. Two other events end up disrupting his life even further: the return of Nadine, an unrequited love from the past, and the death of his father-in-law, General Martn Ayala. Thanks to Ayala's will, Ulises discovers that he has been entrusted with a mission - to transform Los Argonautas, the great family home, into a shelter for abandoned dogs. If he manages to do it in time, he will inherit the luxurious apartment that he had shared with Paulina. This novel centers on themes of family and orphanhood in order to address the abuse of power by a patrilineage of political figures in Latin America, from Simon Bolivar to Hugo Chavez. The untranslatable title,
Real and fictional characters, most of them are writers, exchange the role of narrator in this polyphonic novel. They recount contradictory versions of the plot, a series of femicides that began with the energy crisis. The central narrator is a psychiatrist who manipulates the accounts of his friend, an author writing a book titled The Night; and his patient, an advertising executive obsessed with understanding the world through word puzzles. This is a political novel about the financial crisis and socio-political division in Venezuela from 2008 to 2010.